Buffalo Arts and Culture Organizations

Open Buffalo and Partnership for the Public Good collaboratively compiled a directory of organizations that promote social justice through locally based arts and cultural programmatic efforts. This directory has contact information, as well as the mission and social justice commitment of the various organizations

The politics of Istanbul's Ottoman heritage in the era of globalism

History is not merely about events which remind of the past, it is also about political struggles in the present. This is particularly so in contemporary cultural markets where 'history' is increasingly produced and disseminated in a host of commercialized forms. This paper focuses on competing 'historical' narratives which circulate across Istanbul's cultural markets, as they mediate between between the past and the ethnographic present of the city. These are 'political' narratives in the sense that they mobilize alternative versions of Istanbul's Ottoman past, from different class locations and address different constituencies

Owning memories: a tale of two cities

In 1894 Queen Victoria opened the Salford Docks, now known as Salford Quays, home of MediaCityUK. At the time, Salford Docks were considered a masterpiece of engineering, allowing Manchester to circumvent the route through Liverpool and have access to international trade. The area was an ambitious hub for commerce, industrial activity and job prospects. Although more than 100 years have passed, Salford Quays is again under the spotlight and has the ambition to be a contemporary contender in the cultural industries market – this time focussing, through MediacityUK, on moving the media industry away from London. In order to attract such a prestigious focus, the developers have responded by building waterside apartments, luxury housing and speedy infrastructure and by promoting a successful professional lifestyle, with cultural and cutting-edge designer events. However, the local community seems to be more than ever alienated from this process, the sense of cultural collective memory being diluted. Throughout this paper, we are considering issues relating both to the historical significance of Salford Quays as well as to its cultural legacy within the local community. In order to do so, we are addressing the following research questions: How can the past be brought to into the present to support a sense of identity cohesion? Can Salford shake off the image of a derelict area and become the innovative creative quarter, through the (living) memories of its community? We will argue that the re- invention of Salford Quays as a new cutting-edge creative quarter happens at the expense of the historical memory of the place. In this way, local people and local memories do not become an integral part of the regeneration strategy, but are almost erased from the whole process

European Capitals of Culture as a tool of enhancing economic development and urban branding, a proposal for Tbilisi, Georgia

Se analiza el desarrollo económico producido por ser capitales culturales, el impacto urbano y socioeconómico que conlleva. Se propone Tbilisi como ejemplo para apreciar el impacto económico de la cultura.Grado en Comerci

Rural Autochthony? The Rejection of an Aboriginal Placename in Ballarat, Victoria, Australia

This article addresses the question of why the name ‘Mullawallah’, advanced by local Wada wurrung for a new suburb in the Ballarat area, was contested and rejected by residents. It argues that the intersection between corporate profit, government policy and meaning-based issues of belonging should be highlighted for a deeper understanding of practices around place naming. The contextual conditions regarding the democratisation of place-naming policy, overwhelming power of commercial developers to ‘name Australia’ with marketable high status names and a ‘carpentered’ pastoral environment ‘emptied’ of the Indigenous population, created an environment conducive for the contests over naming. The Indigenous people appeared to have been wiped from the landscape and the worldview of settler locals. Concepts of ‘locals’ and ‘rural autochthony’ prove useful for understanding the ambiguities of belonging and placename attachment in Australia. The article argues that cultural politics of naming remains a contested social practice

New Urban Decorum? City Aesthetics To And Fro

From the municipal and civic perspective, improving the environment responds to the idea “to make a more beautiful city”, answering to the jump from the industrial city to the metropolitan one, and then to the different attempts for ordering cities during the twentieth century. To and fro refers to the journey into the past and arriving in the present. Urban decorum raises the question of What? Who? Where? but especially the How? The issues raised by the “urban decorum” are not new. They emerge, firstly, from boredom inherent in urban life with the consequent need for self-expression and, secondly, from the grass-root processes based on mutual support that intend to take part in improving the quality of the built environment, of the urbanscape, in the city, empowering citizens in the process of “city making” and decision-making