Making Place Work: Site-Specific Socially Engaged Art in 21st Century Toronto

Site-specific socially engaged art practices are on the rise, particularly in cities. Global migration, global networks and online communication notwithstanding, artists, curators and cultural institutions are increasingly working to “activate” audiences in and through local encounters premised on shared exploration of specific urban sites. What kinds of social engagement are made possible through these local encounters? And what kinds of engagement are precluded or overlooked when artists try to engage their publics site-specifically? This dissertation considers site-specific socially engaged art in the context of 21st Century Toronto, a city that is rife with multiple historical and ongoing displacements and that is also facing new challenges, including increasing spatial polarization along class and race lines and considerable political apathy.

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