Authority, accessibility and antagonism. Embodied historiographies towards a democratic urban praxis
Authority, accessibility and antagonism. Embodied historiographies towards a democratic urban praxis
Abstract
Could a performative reconstruction of the past be considered urban praxis? And if so, how? This paper analyses the connections between critical spatial and urban practices and embodied practices of remembering, by which historical reconstructions of the past are performed by collective bodies and communities in historical settings and heritage sites. Embodied practices of remembering include historical festivals, mediaeval fairs, battle reenactments, and living dioramas that relate to our common past, shifting between mediating experience and what is referred to as “doing history”. Immersing the participant in a mediated past, such practices make use of sensuousness and affect to produce and disseminate knowledge, playing with specific relationships between times [past-present] and spaces [urban-rural]. More specifically, this paper will inquire into how embodied practices of remembering reconfigure established understandings of the concepts of authenticity, accessibility and antagonism by analysing a widely cited example, Jeremy Deller’s 'The Battle of Orgreave' [UK, 2001].
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Creative Commons - Namensnennung - Nicht kommerziell - Keine Bearbeitungen
Creative Commons - Namensnennung - Nicht kommerziell - Keine Bearbeitungen
Keywords:
performative reconstructionhistorical reconstructionembodied practices of rememberingbattle reenactmentheritage sites