Urban arts as cultural heritage : contestation, dialogue and urban space management

Abstract

This study examines the possibility of considering urban arts as heritage and, accordingly, managing them through heritage guidelines. In order to do so, the current management of urban arts and controversies around their development and terminology are discussed through different examples, and put into perspective through academic literature and other more popular texts and media. This dissertation is based on a social and heritage perspective in order to retrace the origins and developments of urban arts and to conduct an informed analysis of their potential management through heritage principles. One of the main purposes of this study is to consider more appropriate possibilities for the management of urban arts, and it therefore explores possibilities of an improvement of communication, education and dialogue in this context. Therefore, the communicative aspects of urban arts and their relation to cultural heritage are highlighted in this dissertation. The study ot examples at the management of urban arts leads to a discussion ot the discourse and practice of heritage management itself, whose development towards more bottom-up and participatory, dynamic approaches is emphasised.