Care-full co-curation: critical urban placemaking for more-than-human futures
Jaz Hee-jeong Choi, Kat Braybrooke, Laura Forlano
Abstract
Can participatory engagements in the form of more-than-human co-creation be a generative form of socially and ecologically-just and critical urban placemaking? In recent years, there has been growing interest across sectors in bringing together diverse needs, desires, and experiences through co-creative processes that foster transformative futures, which involve caring with, and for, specific stakeholders. However, institutionalised and increasingly formulaic approaches to care and participation raise questions of who exactly is being included and excluded, how co-creation is carried out, and to what ends. This article explores three interrelated examples of critical urban placemaking in the arts, interrogating how we might design for liveable urban futures as matters of care. We propose that this is achievable through the critical conceptual lens of ‘care-full co-curation' which prioritises the vital co-existence of all beings, and designs with and alongside the needs and lived experiences of human and other-than-human actors and agencies alike.