Engaging Comparative Urbanism ArtSpaces in Beijing and Berlin : Art Spaces in Beijing and Berlin

The concepts employed to understand cities around the world are sourced form a limited set of urban experiences. Comparative urbanism seeks to address this problem, but has yet to offer concrete tools to do so. This book engages with comparative urbanisms as one of the most critical debates facing urban studies. Rather than corrective inclusion, an analysis of the premises behind comparative urbanism suggests that the focus should be on how cities and cases are compared. An epistemic inversion is necessary to redraw the relationship of models and cases. Employing an empirical study of art spaces in Beijing and Berlin to engage with this experiment, the qualitative investigation delves into their motivations and practices, discovering how non-profit art spaces claim and sustain their space in a competitive urban landscape. The nature of these art spaces as temporary is considered in the context of precarity and nomadism, but also challenged as the durability of many art spaces transcend the material space. The spaces of possibility that are exposed in a context of perceived inevitabilities reveal the function of aspiration. Aspiration, as a navigational capacity, is not only a function of the individual but also about the presence of elsewhere. This was significant for the imagination of the possible, and for their attainment. Julie Ren investigates the motivations and practices of making art spaces in Beijing and Berlin to engage with comparative urbanism as a framework for doing research, beyond its significance as a critical intervention. Across vastly different contexts, where universal theories of modernity or development seem increasingly misplaced, she innovatively explores the ways that art spaces employ creative capital to sustain themselves in a competitive urban landscape. She shows how these art spaces are embedded within a politics of aspiration and demonstrates that aspiration is an important lens through which to understand the nature of, and possibilities for, urban change.|Julie Ren investigates the motivations and practices of making art spaces in Beijing and Berlin to engage with comparative urbanism as a framework for doing research, beyond its significance as a critical intervention. Across vastly different contexts, where universal theories of modernity or development seem increasingly misplaced, she innovatively explores the ways that art spaces employ creative capital to sustain themselves in a competitive urban landscape. She shows how these art spaces are embedded within a politics of aspiration and demonstrates that aspiration is an important lens through which to understand the nature of, and possibilities for, urban change. Front Cover Engaging Comparative Urbanism: Art Spaces in Beijing and Berlin Copyright information Table of contents List of Figures and Tables Acknowledgments Preface 1 Elsewheres 2 Operationalizing Comparative Urbanism A bold proposition Geography Developmentalism Scientific method An experiment for the mid-range: cases and sites Tracing 3 Envisioning Art Spaces Social sculpture processes Utopian alternatives Nostalgic localisms Incongruous apathies 4 Making Do Enabling conditions Exchanging creative for financial capital Exchanging creative for political capital Hustle economies 5 Expressions Reflections of precariousness Agency Nomads and ships Worn out, improvising 6 The Capacity to Aspire Theorizing gestures Spaces of possibility Aspiration Appendix A: Art Spaces Appendix B: Personal Interviews Notes References Index Back Cover Julie Ren examines the making of art spaces in Beijing and Berlin to engage with comparative urbanism as a framework for doing research. Across vastly different contexts where universal theories of modernity or development seem increasingly misplaced, the concept of aspiration provides an alternative lens to understand the nature of urban change