Urban transformation, inspiration through arts focus of IU Northwest conference

Published October 27, 2006

Mendieta
Mendieta
As part of its mission to promote arts and culture as a vital element in northwest Indiana, IU Northwest will host Drawing the Lines: Perspectives on Urban Renewal Through the Arts, Thursday-Saturday, Nov. 2- 4. Faculty and students throughout the IU campuses are encouraged to take part in this significant examination of the role arts and humanities can play in community revitalization.   Drawing the Lines is the first conference of its kind for the northwest Indiana and Chicagoland areas. Participants will include invited international experts on arts and urban renewal; local policymakers, legislators and civic leaders; artists and social and cultural entrepreneurs; city planners and economic development officials; and arts and humanities councils. Scheduled presentations from keynote speakers will address how creativity and culture influence community change; what role the arts and culture play in urban renewal; and what factors need to be considered on a local level when advancing urban renewal initiatives. Roundtable discussions, public forums and an urban poetry panel, among other events, will complement the keynote speeches.  
Birky
Birky

“We believe that this conference will develop a dialogue about how integral arts and humanities are to urban life in the 21st century, and how the particular communities in northern Indiana and Chicagoland can shape their own transformations,” said Robin Hass Birky, associate professor of English and co-organizer of the event.  Eva Mendieta, associate professor of Spanish at IU Northwest, recently spent two months in Bilbao, Spain, where she researched how the arts helped to transform that once-depressed city into a thriving hub for artistic expression. “My trip this summer was in many ways a follow-up to an IU Northwest institutional visit to Bilbao that took place in May last year,” Mendieta said. “IU Northwest constituents and community leaders went to Spain to learn about the extraordinary cultural and economic transformation experienced by the city of Bilbao over the last 10 years, and to learn what aspects of that urban reconstruction might bear positive results in our own region.

”Keynote speakers at Drawing the Lines are:

• Franco Bianchini: Reader in cultural planning and policy, and director of the Cultural Planning Research Unit at De Monfort University in Leicester, England, and author of “Planning for the Intercultural City;” “The creative city;” and “Cultural Policy and Urban Regeneration: The West European Experience.”

• Richard Economakis: associate professor, University of Notre Dame School of Architecture, board member of International Making Cities Livable, and co-editor of “Building Cities: Towards a Civil Society and Sustainable Environment,” and editor of “Visions for the Future” and “Building Classical: A Vision of Europe and America.”

Malcolm Miles: Reader in cultural theory, University of Plymouth, U.K., where he convenes the Critical Spaces Research Group and coordinates research methods courses in the Faculty of Arts; Miles is author of “Urban Avant-Gardes,” “Art Space and the City” and the upcoming “Cities and Cultures” in the Routledge series “Critical Introductions to Urbanism,” of which he is series co-editor.

Sharon Zukin: Brokelundian Professor of sociology, Brooklyn (N.Y.) College; author of “The Culture of Cities” and “Landscapes of Power: From Detroit to Disney World.”

Joseba Zulaika: Director of Center for Basque Studies, Reno, Nev.; author of “Crónica de una seducción:  el Museo Guggenheim Bilbao” and editor of “Learning from the Bilbao Guggenheim.”

The cost of attendance is $260 for all three days or $80 for single-day attendance on Nov. 2 and 3, and $40 for Nov. 4; prices include lunch. After Thursday, Oct. 26, multi-day registration will be $295. College students and Gary residents may attend for free. Participants attending for free may purchase lunch for $8. For more information, or to register for the conference, go to this web site: http://www.iun.edu/~dtlines

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