Place as a ‘social connector’: the link with a collaborative art process

Abstract

The Flemish landscape is evolving rapidly. Our built environment changes at an ever faster pace and our social environment is becoming more and more diverse. We live, work or study with people from completely different backgrounds, both socially and geographically. However, not everyone is capable of handling those changes positively. An upsurge of social polarization incites aggression towards what or who deviates from what is previously seen as ‘mainstream’. IM Mount Murals contributes to improving interpersonal connection in neighborhoods by applying embodied artistic experiences in the public sphere. The process aims for embodied social (self) empowerment in the public sphere. By using art as a process, it seeks to realize or deepen positive interpersonal relationships, embedded in a particular public sphere. Actively experiencing is central to the process: feeling, smelling, remembering and listening to what is going on in a place, experiencing different materials while working with them and being aware of body language that plays between participants. Herewith, the process contributes to creating appreciation for one's own environment and associated social relationships, which in turn stimulates the process of sense of place (sense of place) and sense of belonging. Both processes are considered to be important conditions for dealing with our increasingly diverse society in a respectful manner.status: publishe