Research Fellow 2022/2023
"Caught between a rock and a hard place in development."
aka Artists, Gentrification, The City
Alina Lupu's research fellowship has as a main line of inquiry the way that artists relate to the process of gentrification as actors in it.
aka Artists, Gentrification, The City
Alina Lupu's research fellowship has as a main line of inquiry the way that artists relate to the process of gentrification as actors in it.
"Caught between a rock and a hard place in development."
aka Artists, Gentrification, The City
aka Artists, Gentrification, The City
Gentrification is the process of changing the composition of urban neighborhoods by increasing the percentage of higher-income inhabitants and setting up new businesses. It's a process that is assumed to inevitably and purposefully displace inhabitants with a lower income and which contains an intermediary phase in which the neighborhood is made attractive and activated, usually through artistic interventions and moving in artists temporarily, often in concert with municipal institutions and property developers.
From their unique position as proponents of new ways of living and working, artists can be seen as both the pioneers of flex labor and flex living and also as instruments of gentrification, though their degree of willingness to participate in the process spans the range. In the grand hierarchy of city needs, they have been both treasured and made affordances for, as well as claimed space for themselves to put into practice new ways of living and working. Ultimately, when gentrification is spoken of, they have also been pushed out of the neighborhoods that have been gentrified since their economic condition tended to not align with the desired higher income aimed for after redevelopment.
Lupu is interested in mapping the different strategies of artists concerning gentrification: from willing collaborators to critical positioning, to resigned participants, since artists and their living and work practices span this range.
To (re)imagine, build, experience, work and live together in the city, to create new futures, one needs to also look towards the (recent) past through a critical lens that allows for finding sustainable and equitable alternatives. One needs to understand their condition to start thinking about moving beyond it.
Lupu's research will stretch between two Dutch cities which are currently undergoing rapid gentrification: Amsterdam and Rotterdam, and a potential third: the Hague. The fellowship is developed in collaboration with the Photography department of the Rietveld Academie. The fellowship's interests will also make a bridge to Lupu's new alma mater: the Royal Academy of the Arts in The Hague, where she will begin to study in the Master's program in Photography and Society in September 2022.
From their unique position as proponents of new ways of living and working, artists can be seen as both the pioneers of flex labor and flex living and also as instruments of gentrification, though their degree of willingness to participate in the process spans the range. In the grand hierarchy of city needs, they have been both treasured and made affordances for, as well as claimed space for themselves to put into practice new ways of living and working. Ultimately, when gentrification is spoken of, they have also been pushed out of the neighborhoods that have been gentrified since their economic condition tended to not align with the desired higher income aimed for after redevelopment.
Lupu is interested in mapping the different strategies of artists concerning gentrification: from willing collaborators to critical positioning, to resigned participants, since artists and their living and work practices span this range.
To (re)imagine, build, experience, work and live together in the city, to create new futures, one needs to also look towards the (recent) past through a critical lens that allows for finding sustainable and equitable alternatives. One needs to understand their condition to start thinking about moving beyond it.
Lupu's research will stretch between two Dutch cities which are currently undergoing rapid gentrification: Amsterdam and Rotterdam, and a potential third: the Hague. The fellowship is developed in collaboration with the Photography department of the Rietveld Academie. The fellowship's interests will also make a bridge to Lupu's new alma mater: the Royal Academy of the Arts in The Hague, where she will begin to study in the Master's program in Photography and Society in September 2022.
