Browsing by Author "Lasch, Pedro"

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3

Open Access
Durham, North Carolina: A 21st Century Case Study on Gentrification, Artists, and the Creative Economy
(2020-04) Ritchie, Laura Jane
Artist communities both generate, and coalesce around, sites of cultural significance and aesthetic intrigue. In doing so, artists and artist-run spaces impact the cultural and socioeconomic value of place. The connection between urban transformation and artist communities is not a new concept but, as American cities adapt to post-industrial economies, economic development strategies increasingly leverage artists’ cultural capital to regenerate disinvested urban areas. Over the last decade, Durham, North Carolina was ranked as the top creative class metro in the country, exceeded national medians in arts economic impact studies, and scored in the highest percentile for arts vibrancy. Durham’s new creative economy has led to a rapid period of real estate development that now threatens to fragment and erase its local arts ecosystem. In spite of its top performance in national metrics, almost half of Durham’s independent arts venues have closed or relocated outside of the downtown core. This project investigates the history of Durham’s transformation, considers its influences, and measures its impacts on artist communities and artist-run spaces during the time period of Durham’s Cultural Master Plan, 2004-2019. Complementing current academic theories and original research with a decade of experience with Durham’s artist-run spaces, the author concludes with a series of observations and recommendations for the city’s cultural workers and policymakers.
Open Access
Socially Engaged Art in the Public Sphere
(2017-05-04) McKay, Charlotte
Open Access
The Last Column: Impacts on and Significance to the Visual Narrative of 9/11
(2017-06-09) Sensenbrenner, Frannie
The Last Column, the final steel beam removed from Ground Zero, is the centerpiece of the 9/11 Memorial and Museum in New York. This paper demonstrates the Last Column’s significance in the visual narrative of the September 11th, 2001 attacks. I focus on four different ways the Column’s significance has been created. First, I look at the removal ceremony. I argue that the ceremony solidified the Last Column’s position as a venerated object. This contributed to both its overall significance and its transformation from a compositional object to a memorial and work of art. My second section looks more closely at the 9/11 Museum, the current home of the Last Column. My research and personal experience with the museum point to its importance in creating meaning around the Column. I claim that the way the Column is presented in the museum shapes the narrative surrounding it, its significance, and Minimalist aesthetic. My third section focuses on personal connections and reactions to the Last Column. Using the idea of Phenomonology, I maintain that much of the Last Column’s significance is derived from viewers’ interactions with it. The fourth and final section of my writing focuses on the visual aspects of the Column. I contend that features of the Column’s appearance underscore its significance while also highlighting different perspectives that are not included. Through all of this, I maintain that the Column is consequential to the visual discourse of 9/11 and representational for the American reaction in the aftermath of the attacks.