Urban spaces: between culture, image and intervention

Abstract

Today thinking on urban spaces implies to take into account a constant and increasingly pronounced convergence between economy and culture, which also tends to be reflected in terms of cities' political strategies. Indeed, it has been evident the change in the perception of the economic importance of culture, now widely accepted as an attractive factor and as a central element of urban development policy strategies. In this paper we propose a reflection on this theme, referring to a photo shoot about three cultural initiatives and projects, developed in the sphere of visual arts and street art, which took place in Porto and have its genesis in the intense symbiosis between culture, urban space, and cultural policies. They represent the invasion of cities by images and by a symbolic dimension and, at the same time, they illustrate the valorization of cultural activities in the transformation of urban space, whether through urban interventions with a regular character, either through more specific urban interventions that convene new uses for abandoned and/or degraded spaces changing the urban landscape.