Performing civic cultures: Participatory public art and its publics

Abstract

This research investigated the performances of participatory public art as ways of taking political agency in contemporary democracy. We considered these ‘maximalist’ forms of participation – ‘multi-sited’, as the language of democratic theory suggests, in both the political sphere of art and the formal arena of politics – as ways of doing, acting, and performing citizenship in democratic societies. Drawing upon the ‘cultural turn’ in citizenship studies, we assumed civic cultures as central variables to explain these forms of political agency. Referring to media audience research, we adopted an analytical framework to explore the artists’ civic cultures that are in action in public urban spaces. The analysis focused on performances of citizenship developed in Sardinia (Italy). The research shed light on the artists’ knowledge and values, the multiple layers of audience participation envisaged in their practices of communication, their (dis)trust towards institutions and non-elite actors in civil society, and the civic identities they perform in contemporary societies.