Precarious Spaces ─ The Arts, Social and Organizational Change

Using an arts-based inquiry, Precarious Spaces addresses current concerns around the instrumentality and agency of art in the context of the precarity of daily life. The book offers a survey of socially and community-engaged art practices in South America, focusing in particular on Brazil’s “informal” situation, and contributes much to the ongoing debate of the possibility for change through social, environmental, and ecological solutions. The individual chapters, compiled by Katarzyna Kosmala and Miguel Imas, present a wide spectrum of contemporary social agency models with a particular emphasis on detailed case studies and local histories. Featuring critical reflections on the spaces of urban voids, derelict buildings, self-built communities such asfavela, and roadside occupations, Precarious Spaces will make readers question their assumptions about precarity, and life in precarious realms.

Katarzyna Kosmala is a curator, writer, and professor of culture, media, and visual practice at the University of West Scotland.Miguel Imas is senior lecturer in organizational and social psychology at Kingston University, London, and research associate of the London Multimedia Lab at the London School of Economics.