Photography, Public Pedagogy and the Politics of Place-Making in Post-Industrial Areas

11 Photography, public pedagogy and the politics of place-making in post-2 industrial areas3 Maarten Loopmans1, Gillian Cowell 2 and Stijn Oosterlynck 3 4 5 DRAFT – not to be further circulated or quoted without permission from the authors 6 7 Abstract: This paper discusses the way in which public photographic depictions of places8 and place-based communities contribute to the construction of local identity and community9 building. Being public and visualised statements about what a place and the people living10 there are and what they are not, photographs incite public debate about place and community.11 The paper discusses two interventions, one in Ghent, Belgium involving professional12 photographers from outside the neighbourhood, and one in Bonnybridge, Scotland involving13 amateur photography by local residents. Both are attempts by community workers to14 encourage citizens to discuss alternative realities of themselves, their neighbours and their15 neighbourhood. Combining theories on place-making and public pedagogy, we reveal how16 both nonetheless exemplify very different strategies to democratize community building17 processes.1819 Introduction201 1 Assistant Professor, Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences (EES), K.U.Leuven, Leuven, Belgium. 2 [email protected]3 2 Doctoral Research Student, School of Education, University of Stirling, Stirling, Scotland UK; Community 4 Learning and Development Worker, Falkirk Council, Scotland. [email protected] 5 3 Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium. 6 [email protected] 7 21 Local community has become an increasingly important vehicle for, and target of attempts to,2 rebuild and strengthen place-based forms of social cohesion in our societies (DeFilippis and3 North, 2004, Lepofsky and Fraser, 2003). However, community-based forms of planning4 have been shown to produce contradictory results. While some authors argue that they uphold5 the potential to include marginalized urban communities in decision-making arenas, others6 point out that they strengthen the voices of already powerful groups, such as the gentrifying7 urban middle classes in the remaking of places (Loopmans, 2008). 89 The purpose of this paper is to consider the role of photographic interventions as a tool of10 public pedagogy in community-based planning and to assess its democratizing potential. We11 first examine the theoretical linkage between place-making, photography and public12 pedagogy and explain how photographic interventions can be seen as public pedagogy13 projects. Secondly, we discuss two photographic projects: ‘Lijn 3’ in Gent, Belgium and14 ‘This Is Not Bonnybridge’ in Bonnybridge, Scotland. Both projects incited a debate on local15 identity. A comparison of both cases reveals how Gert Biesta’s theory on public pedagogy16 (Biesta, 2011) can enrich the debate on art, community building and place-making. While17 both cases intervene in the production of meaning and identity, they are shown to differ in the18 character of their pedagogical ambitions and effects. 1920 Photography and the social construction of place21 Geographers have long acknowledged the social construction of places as against an22 essentialist understanding of place. Place-identities are being formed in a social and political23 process in which the exchange of meaning takes a prominent place (Martin, 2003a). Place-24 making is considered a relational process (Massey, 2004, 2005; Pierce et al., 2011) which25 assembles place-elements in bundles of meaning to construct identities. This development of 31 a shared local identity can be considered a process of social or everyday learning (Ingold,2 2000; Mcfarlane, 2011). Place-making is also political for its inherent selectivity: Firstly,3 particular identities are constructed by selecting specific place-elements or prioritizing some4 over others. Shared understandings of place identities are assembled through struggle,5 negotiation and communication (Pierce, Martin & Murphy, 2011). Opposing interests may6 appear as to which elements are included in or omitted from collectively shared place7 identities. Secondly, the construction of place identities is political in the sense that it is, in8 return, meaningful for political mobilization. Place identities can become powerful bases for9 mobilisation or collective action (e.g. Cox, 1998; Le Galès, 2000; Elwood, 2006; Nicholls,10 2009). Martin (2003b) considers place identities as ‘place frames’ for collective action:11 selective, but shared experiences and understandings of collective interests which can12 stimulate collective organization and mobilization.1314 Place-making is an ongoing, dialectic and contingent process. Whereas places might appear15 to have a stable identity, they are confronted with constant attempts at redefinition.16 Community building initiatives often consciously engage with place making. Photography in17 particular is increasingly used in neighbourhood projects (such as photovoice projects, see18 Wang e.a. 2004; Strack e.a. 2004) for its perceived capacity to represent and open out life in19 all its variety, nuance and incompleteness. The taking, exhibiting and viewing of the20 photograph is a political process involved with the ways in which political subjects articulate21 themselves and their surroundings (Hawkins 2010; McNamara 2009; Fiona D. Mackenzie22 2006). 2324 Photography as representation 41 In the present article, our focus is on photography projects which engage in the politics of2 place-making with an explicit purpose of empowerment and emancipation. The3 representational capacities of photographs have received considerable attention in this4 respect. Photo-documentary in particular is part of a long tradition of ‘representing’5 marginalized groups and exposing injustices in human experience (Clarke, 1997; Burrows,6 2002). Photo documentaries by professional photographers have been considered a powerful7 tool in this for two distinct reasons. Firstly, photo documentaries build upon a photograph’s8 distinct capacity to convince us of its simple correspondence to a distant or past reality9 (Walton, 1984; Dant & Gilloch, 2002). This capacity has been noted as specific to10 photography by early photography critics as Susan Sontag (1977) and Roland Barthes (1977;11 1980). Benjamin’s analysis of the political promise of the photograph builds on exactly this: a12 photograph’s capacity to reveal, to bring things closer to us, to introduce a critical proximity13 to distant realities which necessitates political judgement: ‘is it not the task of the14 photographer... to reveal guilt and to point out the guilty in his photographs?’ (Benjamin,15 1985, 256).Secondly, documentary photography has a tradition of adding to its realism a16 degree of emotional aesthetics which triggers reactions from the audience (Fitzgerald, 2002).17 This aesthetics requires craftsmanship or a sensitivity for what Henri Cartier-Bresson (1958)18 called ‘the decisive moment’. Throughout the history of photo-documentaries, the artists’19 sense for focus, composition, light, colour has been deployed to enhance the impact of a20 picture and adorn the pictured reality with theoretical contextualisation (Sassen, 2011). The21 goal of the documentarian, Kay (2011) writes, “is to create a normative shift: to invoke a22 visceral emotional reaction—outrage, shame, sadness—that compels, motivates, and23 obligates a larger audience to act.” Critics have confronted these qualities of photo24 documentary for representation as inherently contradictory. Firstly, the potential of25 photographs to represent realities has been suggested to undermine its emotional power by 51 inducing a ‘compassion fatigue’ (Moeller, 1999). Even the most shocking pictures turn banal2 when represented over and over again; the infinite stream of ‘shocking truths’ renders the3 viewer numb and indifferent (Sontag, 1977; Dean, 2003).4 Secondly, the emotional aesthetics of the photographer have been described as manipulative5 manufacturing of a non-existent but suggested reality. Photo documentaries’ emotional6 qualities are susceptible to use for propagandist causes by authors from across the political7 spectrum in the creation of powerful collective identities (Carlebach 1988; Woller, 1999;8 Finnegan 2010), thereby objectifying and de-individualizing the subjects represented through9 the pictures (Natanson, 1992). Moreover, the very visceral qualities of a photograph10 potentially stimulate reject as much as affect from the audience (Rose, 2006). Fitzgerald11 describes how ‘eroticised’ photographic depictions of unknown or distant social milieux “can12 have the effect of Othering the subject” (Fitzgerald, 2002, p. 374). . In the end, “the powerful,13 the established, the male, the colonizer typically portray the less powerful, less established,14 female, and colonized” (Harper, 1998, p.140) thus casting their dominant gaze upon them and15 negatively affecting the validity of other ways of viewing social difference. 16 Partly in response to this critique, auto-photography projects have developed and gained17 prominence in place-making in the past decades. As a blend of autobiography and18 photography, auto-photography projects like Photovoice have been suggested to directly19 empower or ‘give voice to’ subaltern groups by giving over the camera to them (Wang &20 Burris, 1997; Dodman, 2003; Johnson, May & Cloke, 2008). Its success is assigned to a21 number of unique characteristics of photography as a means of communication. Firstly,22 photography, as opposed to writing, is considered to be a particularly accessible form of23 communication. The camera is able to document ‘the subject’s perceptual orientation with a24 minimum of training’ (Ziller and Smith 1977, 173). Secondly, a photograph, in being a direct25 and straightforward representation of the world, is also proposed as a robust means of 61 communication. Photographs are able to ‘undermine the implicit authority of the written2 word’ (Walker 1993, 73) which remains too often the privilege of the educated. Thirdly,3 auto-photography is a practice which resists and redirects the dominant gaze, as it represents4 a way of ‘looking alongside’ rather than ‘looking at’ the subjects depicted (Kindon, 2003).5 Finally, auto-photography can also engender social action as it can be a tool to reach, inform6 and organize community members (Wang & Burris, 1997). To the auto-photographer,7 photographs raise critical awareness of the self and its social condition as they become8 “...actual or metaphoric examples of his or her life world” (Armstrong 2005: 34). Mackenzie9 (2006) emphasizes how visual images can underpin a culture of resistance revealing10 unwanted, hidden realities and unveiling the contradictions of particular constellations of11 power.12 Critics dismiss the somewhat naïve and artificial equation of auto-photography with13 autonomous representation. Auto-photographers cannot avoid controversy amongst their14 peers about the representations produced of themselves and their communities (Williams &15 Lykes, 2003). Even within the group of photographers themselves, conflicts can occur16 (McIntyre & Lykes, 2004). Photographs by auto-photographers are equally capable of17 stimulating negative emotional, visceral and sometimes violent reactions from their audience18 as other photographs (Ewald, 2001). Prins (2011) discusses the way auto-photography19 projects are susceptible to multiple gazes which influence representation through the pictures:20 auto-photographers tend towards self-censorship under the impulse of the suspect gaze of21 other community members, thereby internalizing community norms of privacy and22 disclosure. Simultaneously, researchers setting up autophotography projects cannot avoid, as23 an imagined audience, shaping participant photographers’ choices in subtle ways (Prins,24 2011, 429).25 Engaging audiences and subjects: photography as process 71 The critical commentaries to photography’s role in place-making point to the need to2 understand the photograph as part of a process which does not stop at the moment of making3 the picture. Making a picture is related to a wider process of communication and interaction,4 not just between subject and photographer, but with a variety of audiences which stretches5 the issue of representation in time and space. Kay (2011) emphasizes how politically engaged6 photo-documentaries are about building solidarity with audiences, as much as with subjects.7 As documentarians create calls to action, they need to recognize and engage those who are8 called. Alredd (2006) discusses the tensions these double ‘solidarities’ give rise to, in9 explaining how Wright’s early 20th century photo-documentaries should not be criticized for10 their homogenizing representation of a presupposed ‘African American community’, but be11 understood as a pedagogic engagement with a white audienceto confront it with the12 ‘inadequacy of its historically conditioned gaze’ (Alredd, 2006, p. 554). 13 The emerging literature on curating as a pedagogy of the audience explicitly relates the14 process to a politics of place. It focuses on the role of the curator of collaborative exhibitions15 and site-specific art projects in mediating the tension between respecting the artist’s16 autonomy and resisting an authoritative enforcement of essentialised understandings of place17 (Bishop, 2006). Inspired by debates on the relational character of place-making in social and18 cultural geography, Kwon (2002) calls for community-based art as a ‘projective’ rather than a19 descriptive enterprise. Projects need to unsettle and raise questions, rather than provide20 authoritative answers; the curator has an important responsibility in developing opportunities21 for inspiring confrontations in and beyond the event-exhibition (Doherty, 2007). Such an22 endeavor has a clear political dimension. For O’Neill and Wilson (2010) curatorship consists23 of supporting emergent and unknown processes which are not linear, nor exhaustive, towards24 the contesting of categories and resisting any seduction towards pre-defining the subject of25 the process; the photograph becomes a moment captured in order to put forward alternative 81 representations, to open up hidden, misrepresented and underrepresented areas for2 questioning. Photographic interventions are about considering your own place in relation to3 the ‘given place’ in order to test who can and cannot speak (Kaizen (2010).4 This emergent ‘social/relational turn’ in curatorship studies projects a different light to the5 issue of representation through photography. It avoids the dichotomous view on dominant6 versus subalterns representations in the photograph, and points to the process-character of7 place-making in which a photograph becomes a moment of ‘projective’ intervention. In this8 process, the character of the curator is put forward as a mediator between photographer,9 subject and audience. However, where the literature on photography as representation10 discusses in detail the specific strategic choices photographers are facing in relation to the11 subject of representation, the literature on curatorship as place-making fails to discuss the12 concrete strategic perspectives curators are to choose from to develop their engagements with13 audiences into an emancipator endeavour. In the following paragraph, we discuss how Gert14 Biesta’s political theory of public pedagogy can help dissecting the strategic potential and15 problems of a process of ‘projective’ engagement with place between author/curator,16 photographs, subject and audience..171819 Place-making as public pedagogy2021 To refine our understanding of the strategic and political dimensions of photographic place22 making processes, we turn towards recent theories on public pedagogy. Public pedagogy23 discusses photographic projects as pedagogic interventions in ongoing social learning process24 of place making and takes the interaction process with the audience as the focus. In this25 paper, we build upon Gert Biesta’s (2011) political theory of public pedagogy. Biesta 91 conceives politics as ‘...a process of transformation in which private interests are evaluated2 and reformulated in light of collective needs and concerns.” (Biesta and Cowell 2012). This3 involves the presentation of “...interests, sentiments, beliefs, values, principles, preferences,4 ways of life, aspirations, aversions, and political identities, i.e., all the material that forms the5 basis of public opinions” in the public sphere (Von Rautenfeld 2005: 187). In this6 perspective, the politics of place making constitutes an arena of the public sphere in which7 private conceptions of local identity and community are shared, discussed and translated into8 collective imaginations. Public pedagogy considers these as learning processes and9 emphasizes their potential in stimulating political and democratic awareness. Public10 pedagogy in particular explores the possibilities for pedagogic interventions: attempts by11 educators to shape or influence social interactions towards stimulating political social12 learning. 1314 Biesta (this issue) distinguishes three types of public pedagogic interventions in the political15 process which have different intentions and effects: pedagogy for the public (instruction),16 pedagogy of the public (conscientisation) and a pedagogy that opens up possibilities of17 becoming public (interruption). Still very dominant in community-building, the first type of18 pedagogy attempts to define and alter place identities by instructing participants into the19 public debate about neglected issues or interests. The second type of public pedagogy, which20 is strongly embedded in the Freirean tradition of community work, attempts to empower21 marginalized groups by altering their self-conception as political subjects. This type of public22 pedagogy frames place-making as a political process dominated by specific groups, and23 emphasizes the need for marginalized groups to challenge their exclusion from the place-24 making arena. The role of the public pedagogue is to facilitate the latter groups’25 politicization, which takes the form of raising critical consciousness and developing counter- 101 hegemonic representations of place. The third type of pedagogy resists setting a pedagogic2 agenda or predefining what needs to be ‘taught’. It has at its core a care for a relational form3 of place-making that is characterised by plurality (Massey, 2004). This implies pedagogic4 interventions which open up closed place-making processes, staging dissensus by interrupting5 the normal order of places - without imposing alternative definitions of place. Rather,6 interruptions enacted by public pedagogues enable new forms of political subjectivity and7 imaginations of place and community to arise.891011 Lijn 3 and This Is Not Bonnybridge1213 Analyzing two different cases of photographic interventions, we will explore how14 photography works as (part of) a pedagogic strategy. We will focus on how the community15 educator uses photography to intervene with a particular pedagogical agenda in mind and16 assess the potential of photography in the politics of place-making. 17 The Lijn 3 photo exhibition in the gentrifying neighbourhood Brugse Poort in Ghent,18 Belgium, engaged professional photographers coming from outside the area. In the tradition19 of photo-documentary, Lijn 3 reveals the social misery that continues to be present in the area20 and incites to reflect on the dominant mantra on creative, middle class urbanization; rather21 unexpectedly, it stirred a conflict over what is a representative and fair depiction of the22 neighbourhood and enabled alternative processes of place-making to arise. In the second23 case, an auto-photography exhibition in the post-industrial Scottish town of Bonnybridge, the24 aim was to stimulate residents, ex-residents and non-residents of the village to photograph the 111 village and make their private concerns more public. The resulting images raised less of a2 public debate but did stimulate more subtle learning processes amongst the participants. 34 The Lijn 3 photodocumentary 5 Brugse Poort is a post-industrial neighbourhood with a strong concentration of social and6 spatial problems (lack of open space, substandard housing, poverty, drug use, illegal7 immigrants, intercultural tensions) (Debruyne et al., 2008). In 2002, the Ghent city council8 started a large-scale urban renewal project for the area dubbed ‘Oxygen for Brugse Poort’.9 For a couple of years the council concentrated its financial resources and policy attention on10 this neighbourhood to increase its liveability and attract middle class residents (Stad Gent,11 2001, Stad Gent, 2007). The urban renewal project involved amongst others the building of12 new parks and redesigning of existing public spaces, the development of a ‘soft mobility’13 axis through the neighbourhood, the demolition and replacement of inadequate housing units14 and a program to improve the access of migrant women to local social services. The council15 deliberately applied a community-based planning approach by organising participatory16 processes and strengthening and improving the networks between local organisations (Stad17 Gent, 2009). By doing so, it aimed to turn around the existing representation of the18 neighbourhood as a declining poor and migrant neighbourhood. A local socio-cultural19 organisation called De Vieze Gasten (‘The Dirty Pals’) was given a crucial role in this20 strategy. They were subsidised by the council to ‘assist’ (through theatre plays, a brass band,21 story writing, processions, photography, etc.) residents in the change process brought about22 by the urban renewal project. Important for our analysis is their photographic club called23 Fixatiefi, which visually documented the life and changes in the neighbourhood. 24 121 In the first months of 2010, a social worker in the Brugse Poort neighbourhood organised an2 exhibition, Lijn 3 (referring to the bus line passing through the neighbourhood), with3 photographs revealing those living ‘at the margins of the welfare state’ (drug addicts, illegal4 immigrants, poor housing conditions)(Beke, 2010). The social worker had felt increasingly5 frustrated with the newly emerging hegemonic representation of the neighbourhood as6 communicated through the urban renewal project. He believed that the new image of Brugse7 Poort as a hot spot for the alternative and creative middle classes did not benefit his ‘clients’.8 Quite to the contrary, his clients were ‘brushed away’ as they disturbed the new positive9 image of the neighbourhood. 10 With the exhibition the social worker tried to stir a public debate about exclusion and11 marginalization in our cities and the failure of urban renewal to address these issues. The area12 he was working exemplified this failure in a very concrete manner. He and the organisation13 he worked for believe in the power of concrete, real life stories to raise awareness amongst,14 but also emotionally touch the general public and policy makers. Inspired by the socially15 critical photo-documentaries of the early 20th century social work pioneers (Huff 1998;16 Rosler 1989; Finnegan 2010), he decided to organise a photo-exhibition on the marginalised17 lives he knew from the neighbourhood. He made two important strategic decisions which18 influenced the effects of his intervention. First, he declined the offer of the local amateur19 photographers of Fixatief to participate. He believed their images would be too positive (in20 line with the hegemonic images of the neighbourhood projected through the urban renewal21 project) and would risk ignoring the problems he wanted to show. Secondly, the photo22 exhibition was to have an audience way beyond the neighbourhood. Therefore, the exhibition23 was to be held in a professional exhibition venue, in the city centre, and an editor was sought24 to publish an attractive exhibition catalogue. In addition, collaboration was sought with25 professional photographers with a certain fame and some distance to the area. The social 131 worker contacted six professional photographers whom he accompanied to the2 neighbourhood and whom he introduced to the people and issues to be revealed. 34 The pictures produced, while overall expressing a degree of ‘artistic’ aestheticism, reveal a5 mixture of styles and approaches. Some photographers explicitly zoom in on details of social6 misery (e.g. close-ups of drug injections, of rubbish heaps in squats, of the extremely bad7 housing conditions of undocumented Roma migrants), while others tried to emphasize the8 ‘normality’ of marginalised groups by depicting scenes of everyday life (kids playing in a9 muddy street, friends in a pub, construction workers praying at the work site). Finally, some10 opted for a more humorous approach by including bizarre or carnivalesque elements in their11 pictures (a beat cop imitating Elvis, a drunk guy in the pub offering a beer to the tattooed12 skull on his chest, ‘‘retro’ statuettes on a chimney).13 The photographic exhibition triggered two types of responses from the audienceii. The14 majority of the visitors of the exhibition applauded the exhibition, highlighting that through15 the photographs they have seen a glimpse of ‘another community’ which they were not aware16 of, which appears to be a fulfilment of the organizers’ purpose. However, a vociferous17 minority responded indignantly. Many of these explicitly identified themselves as being from18 the neighbourhood, while almost none of the people that responded positively to the19 exhibition identified where they were from, except for some that said that ‘they once lived20 there’. Those that responded negatively to the exhibition claimed that the neighbourhood was21 represented in a one-sided and sensationalist way, ignoring all the good things and initiatives22 set up over the course of the last years. A wide array of neighbourhood associations23 responded promptly with an open letter, denouncing the lack of broader context. The social24 worker himself was shocked by these responses. While he had hoped to receive support from25 within the neighbourhood against expected negative reactions by city officials, the exhibition 141 had laid bare strong tensions within the neighbourhood. According to him, the reactions also2 adversely affected the marginalized individuals he had attempted to give a voice. The social3 worker claimed that most of his photographed clients were initially happy with the exhibition,4 as they felt the photographs portrayed the neighbourhood as they know and experience it.5 However, the negative responses from the middle class sections of the neighbourhood,6 claiming that it was unfair to identify the neighbourhood solely with its most marginalized7 residents, reinforced stereotypes and feelings of stigmatization with his clients. The polarized8 debate (rather than the exhibition itself) made them feel betrayed and exposed. Disappointed9 by the adverse reactions, the social worker refused to further engage in the debate he had10 triggered.1112 From a public pedagogy perspective, the story of Lijn3 can be dissected at the double level of13 intentions and effects. The Lijn 3 exhibition combined an intention to ‘instruct’ the general14 public about the conditions of life at the margins of the welfare state (‘pedagogy for the15 public’) with an ambition to undermine hegemonic representations of place. The latter was16 pursued through a strategy which combined –rather uneasily as its effects showed- the aim of17 generating a broader critical awareness of the processes of exclusion implied in the urban18 renewal in order to stimulate political action to make urban renewal processes more inclusive19 (‘pedagogy of the public’) with an attempt at interrupting the on-going processes of place-20 making by giving marginalized inhabitants of the neighbourhood, their experiences and needs21 a public character (‘pedagogy for publicness’). From the ‘pedagogy for the public’22 perspective, the effects of the photo exhibition were mixed. Most visitors found the23 photographs instructive as they learned about a part of the community and place which they24 were not aware of, and the reactions showed some were also emotionally touched. The25 representations exposed the minute detail of everyday life struggles within a single 151 photograph, layers normally invisible to those who are not inside these ethnic or social2 groupings. 3 For a part of the audience however, this pedagogy for the public did not reach its goal and4 rather triggered aversion and rejection. This can be related to the way the exhibition also had5 an intention to interrupt, an intention which materialized to an extent unexpected by the6 organiser. The social worker used the medium of photography as a way to generate images of7 people, events and spaces he considered were ignored, unknown and that he felt merited8 bringing to public consciousness. However, he underestimated the extent to which the9 dominant image of a creative middle class neighbourhood had already become pervasive. At10 the scale of the neighbourhood, the images he attempted to give more prominence were11 interrupting the image of ‘normality’. The interruption it caused opened up a debate on12 whether the photographs gave a fair and balanced representation of the neighbourhood and in13 that sense also questioned the hitherto hegemonic representation of the neighbourhood.14 Ironically, this debate strengthened hegemonic representations of the neighbourhood as the15 pre-dominant response of local residents focused on rejecting the one-sided representation of16 the neighbourhood and emphasized the marginal nature of the people and practices portrayed17 in the photographs. This response inhibited the development of political subjectivity (‘a18 becoming public’) amongst the marginalized residents depicted in the photographs, as it19 increased their feelings of stigmatization and exclusion. Furthermore, the debate deflected20 from the exhibition’s ‘pedagogy for and of the public’ intentions, as it did not stimulate21 politicians and local organisations to move to action to deal with the problems depicted, and22 refrained the ‘dominant community’ of local residents from widening their knowledge and23 understanding of the marginalized and excluded inhabitants in their neighbourhoodiii. 2425 161 Autophotography: This Is Not Bonnybridge, Scotland23 Bonnybridge is a ‘post-industrial’ semi-rural village in Central Scotland. It has experienced4 significant decline of its major industries in the 1980s, leaving behind vast derelict industrial5 areas and an extensive but underused canal and railway system. None of the derelict6 industrial areas have been subjected to government-based regeneration or fenced off from7 access, leaving the landscape a mix of picturesque countryside and vast tracts of derelict and8 dangerous industrial sites and mines. Specific policies and statistics represent the area as in9 need of regeneration and with severe social problems (Falkirk Council 2010; 2011).10 However, in the past decades, the area has also attracted a wealthier class to large newly11 constructed private housing estates. Consequently, a section of the town lost its regeneration12 status and access to certain public funding streams that might have helped to alleviate some13 of its structural problems. Therefore little concerted regeneration takes place; on the14 contrary, over time around ten of the town’s public buildings, as indoor meeting spaces, had15 been demolished, replaced by one community centre that predominantly functions as a sports16 and youth centre. As in Brugse Poort, the new middle classes inhabiting the new housing17 estates dominate the limited public meetings and participation initiatives which do take place.18 Older residents seem to have lost the capacity and interest to voice concerns over the19 transformation of the area, due to a lack of opportunities available to do so. One of the20 authors, who works as a community worker with the original and predominantly older-aged21 residents, questioned why their voices are missing and searched for interventions that might22 help them ‘to become public’ again. 2324 Autophotography was chosen as a pedagogic tool to stimulate the development of political25 subjectivity and engagement amongst this underrepresented group, and to open up a public 171 debate about the future of the community. Different from the Brugsepoort, the community2 worker had no intention to put forward a certain message through the pictures. In auto-3 photography the researcher or community worker is less prominent in the production of4 pictures, and is relegated to an outsider of the resident’s world depicted in the image. Rather5 than the content of the pictures, the photographic practice itself becomes the tool for6 stimulating a democratization of place-making in the village. 78 The autophotography project set off with a public call to residents to reflect upon9 Bonnybridge in its transitory state. An advert was placed in the local newspaper for10 contributions as well as advertised amongst local camera clubs, in the public library, around11 the village itself and to individuals who were known to the community worker through earlier12 community work. Cameras were offered if necessary. Eleven photographers from a variety of13 social backgrounds and neighbourhoods contributed to the exhibition. Only a few individuals14 had any particular experience in photography. To give residents free reign in what to15 photograph, participants were instructed in rather general terms to take photographs of16 Bonnybridge in its ‘transitory state’. Different from Brugsepoort, the audience of the17 exhibition was chosen to be decisively local. Bonnybridge-library, one of the few remaining18 public venues and hub of local social life, agreed to display the photographs. 19 Many pictures expressed the photographers’ relationships to the hidden, unseen and unknown20 aspects of the place and the way they lived its history. Both negative and positive21 perspectives alternated. Negative themes included representations of the temporary closure of22 the local community centre, littering, civil disobedience, derelict and abandoned industrial23 areas, lack of understanding of the area’s important industrial historical past. Positive themes24 included relaxing walking areas, beautiful touristic spots, areas of historical significance,25 places of their childhood. Photographer-participants were eager for their photographs to 181 stimulate debates and connections with others living in the area on the issues of loss, decline2 and neglect, and indeed beauty, pride and aesthetics as raised within their photographs.3 Different from the more ‘artistic’ pictures in Lijn 3, these messages were expressed in a more4 one-dimensional and traditional way, extra elements added to the picture to make the5 message more explicit. For example, several photographers made their images into a collage6 involving text, to tell a story or put a political point across where they thought photography7 was not able to. Photographs were manipulated to communicate a particular message, with8 the use of sepia and black and white, frames around the images or blurred romantic edges to9 add to the understanding of these photographs, and the places depicted in them, as historically10 significant to the photographeriv. 11 We interviewed the contributors to the exhibition and all highlighted a range of reasons for12 contributing which show their own pedagogies of instruction and conscientisation: a desire to13 communicate to others their anger and sadness at the decline and neglect of specific parts of14 the village; to show an alternative side of the village based on their personal positive15 experiences contemporarily in walking around its beauty spots; historically as a place of their16 happy childhoods. All were eager to start a more general debate about Bonnybridge at the17 scale of the community, but felt that their photographs did not make this happen within this18 exhibition, which they were disappointed about. Indeed the exhibition did not create a major19 stir in the wider community and wasn’t taken up by the media as was the case with Lijn 3. At20 the scale of the community, it did not have the interrupting effect that could stimulate a21 renewed publicness of place-making. Nonetheless, it did open up a space for political22 engagement in place-making at the level of transactions between the photographers and23 viewers of the exhibition. At the interpersonal scale, the project did involve a public24 pedagogy which cares for and stimulates publicness. The images submitted began a25 conversation around hidden or symbolic spaces and everyday experiences that were hitherto 191 unseen. Some of the images could not be recognised even by some of those living in that2 location for a long period of time and by the other contributing photographers, encouraging3 them therefore to see previously familiar places in a strange way. The exhibition and the4 discussions between photographers and viewers which unravelled constituted a translation5 process from private image to public image. For the viewer and their fellow photographers,6 seeing the place through the lens of the other was an interrupting experience, allowing for7 new conceptions of the place to emerge and for historical places to be brought back into8 presence. The photographers revisited particular places in the act of putting forward their9 own agenda for encouraging ‘seeing’, the viewer and fellow photographers engaging in10 looking at the visual depictions and considering their own experiences and understandings of11 the village in a different way. 12 Secondly, the exhibition had the unexpected effect of conscientisation or a ‘pedagogy of the13 public’ for the participants, as photographers themselves emerged as more confident political14 subjects out of this experience. Before the start of the project, two photographers remarked15 that they were not the correct social class to be taking photographs; as working class males16 their role was not to do artistic things. In the course of the project, participants became more17 convinced about their political capacities and about the potential of photography to change18 something in the community, which is a necessary part of the political agency they gained19 through the project. The act of taking the photographs allowed each participant to put forward20 how their place looks to them, developing their own place and themselves within this. It21 became a process of political subjectification, a way for them to gain political agency, assert22 their own ways of ‘seeing’ and experiencing their community, and test their own23 representations and experiences in the public domain with other residents with different24 representations and positionalities (see Biesta 2011). Illustrative of their regained political25 confidence, the photographers themselves initiated a second photography project to explore 201 and raise awareness of the poorly equipped shopping streets of Bonnybridge, and the people2 who actually live and shop there. 3456 Conclusions7 In this paper we have discussed the use of photographic interventions in place-making8 processes by two community workers in Belgium and Scotland. The cases reveal the9 relevance of considering photographic interventions in place-making as ‘public pedagogy10 projects’ and reveal the ways community workers as ‘curators’ become co-producers of11 meaning in collaborating with the producers of political art ( experiences, perceptions and12 representations reframed in a photograph), towards setting out pedagogic engagements13 between viewers,producers and subjects of photographic projects. 14 Discussing these interventions from a public pedagogy perspective reveals the complexities15 of relational place-making and shows that there is more strategic decisions to be made than16 choosing between defending the position of dominant or marginalized groups. A public17 pedagogy perspective reveals how the same goal of democratizing place-making can be18 pursued from a variety of strategic perspectives, and that depending on these perspectives, we19 can engage in a pedagogy for the public, a pedagogy of the public or a pedagogy for20 publicness. Depending on this choice, photography can be deployed as a pedagogical21 instrument for instructing the general public and policy makers on neglected images of place22 (as in the photo-documentary tradition exemplified by the Lijn3 case), for conscientisation23 and stimulating political agency of marginalized groups in the making of place (as in many24 Photovoice projects) or for interrupting normality to open up the public sphere to alternative25 perspectives on place (as was the intention in the auto-photography project of Bonnybridge). 211 However, our case studies also reveal that photographic projects are complex processes2 which tend to create unpredictable effects in relation to the perspectives and motivations of3 the ‘curator’. In our analysis, we have begun to unravel the complexity of place-making-4 through-photography in four dimensions. 5 Firstly, it has become clear that the intentions of the curator-community worker do not6 always align with the intentions of the participating photographers. Photographers can add7 additional layers of motivation to the project, which can conflict with or support the curators’8 intentions. 9 Secondly, this impacts upon the content communicated through the picture, and the form of10 the picture. Whereas the community worker in Ghent kept a relatively close eye on the11 content of the pictures, it is clear that even there, the photographers skilfully tried to12 emphasize their own particular interests as revealed in the personal ‘artistictouch’ each13 picture transpires. In the case of Bonnybridge, the community worker did not put any14 constraints on the content or form of the pictures and left this crucial communicative element15 to the participants to decide. The interactive ambitions of the Bonnybridge photographers16 have certainly had an impact upon the fact that their pictures portray personal, individual17 stories, whereas the Lijn 3 pictures reveal an attempt to express the ‘exemplary’ in the first18 place.1920 A third element which remained out of control to the organizers of the interventions were the21 interpretations made by its viewers. The cases have made clear to what extent interpretation22 is an uncontrollable element. At the moment of interpretation, the content of the picture23 connects to place-elements already existing in the minds of the viewers. In Lijn3, the content24 of the photographs clashed with the image of the neighbourhood pre-existing in the minds of25 a number of middle class residents, and the ‘exemplary’ has been read as caricaturing. This 221 unexpectedly incited a certain ‘pedagogy for publicness’ which opened up a debate on the2 ‘true image’ of the neighbourhood. At the same time, the debate inhibited a ‘pedagogy of the3 public’ which might have offered the marginalised groups characterized on the pictures a4 greater degree of political self-consciousness.56 Finally, the interpretation of pictures also interacts with the context in which the picture is7 framed. Contextuality goes beyond the kind of intertextuality with existing place-frames as8 described in the previous point. Rather, it also refers to the scale and place it aims for in its9 place-making attempts, and the scale and place at which viewers reflect upon the pictures. In10 both cases, different parties involved were referring to different scales and places. The11 community worker in Lijn 3 wanted to make a general statement about urban renewal in12 deprived neighbourhoods in Belgium, therefore deliberately choosing for famous Belgian13 photographers to make ‘exemplary’ portraits and a major, central city exhibition venue to14 show the pictures. However, the content of the pictures, the name of the exhibition and the15 way it was interpreted by Brugsepoort-residents as caricaturing this particular neighbourhood16 relegated the ensuing debate to the neighbourhood scale, thereby altering the subject of17 debate and the public pedagogy of the project in a direction the organizer didn’t want it to go.18 Alternatively, in Bonnybridge, the organizer and participants had hoped to start a debate at19 the municipal level by inviting photographers from various backgrounds and hosting the20 exhibition at the local library. Again, the pedagogy of the project shifted in unexpected21 directions as the ‘pedagogy for publicness’ remained at the interpersonal level predominantly22 and an unexpected ‘pedagogy of the public’ developed as photographers developed23 themselves into more self-conscious political actors.24 231 In sum, our exploratory analysis of the public pedagogies of photographic interventions in2 place making has revealed a complexity of processes to be explored and theorized in further3 detail. Biesta’s theory of public pedagogy enables a more nuanced understanding of such4 community building attempts, showing how various intentions and effects can be attached to5 attempts at democratizing place-making, which merit further research. 6 Our analysis not only dissects photographic interventions as sets of different, but7 interconnected pedagogies, but also reveals some strategic issues ‘curators’ of photographic8 place-making interventions should take into account. First of all, we have revealed the9 necessity for continuous reflexivity and flexibility as curating means, in essence, managing10 an inherently unpredictable and complex set of processes which cannot be planned11 beforehand. Secondly, part of the unpredictability can be decreased by taking into account the12 potential divergences and uncontrollable elements we distinguished. Both intentions of other13 collaborators and existing place frames of audiences have been shown to influence the14 content of what is communicated. 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We also interviewed several key players in the 5 neighbourhood. 6 iii We are only considering the immediate responses to the photo exhibition here, as a couple of months later, partially 7 after discussions with external actors (amongst which one of the authors), a range of local organizations organized a 8 reflection process (entitled ‘Precaire Puzzel’ or ‘Precarious Puzzle’) and set up a campaign for a ‘solidarity 9 neighbourhood’. 10 iv Pictures and some more detail on the exhibition is given on http://thisisnotbonnybridge.blogspot.com/ (last consulted 11 on 19 february 2012)

Photography, Public Pedagogy and the Politics of Place-Making in Post-Industrial Areas

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