Citizen Action as a Driving Force of Change. The Meninas of Canido, Art in the Street as an Urban Dynamizer

Abstract

The austerity policies imposed by the government in the wake of the 2007 crisis have deteriorated the welfare state and limited neighborhood recovery. Considering the inability and inefficiency on the part of administrations to carry out improvement actions in neighborhoods, it is the neighborhood action itself that has carried out a series of resilient social innovations to reverse the dynamics. In this article, we will analyze the Canido neighborhood in Ferrol, a city in north-western Spain. Canido is traditional neighborhood that was experiencing a high degree of physical and social deterioration, until a cultural initiative called “Meninas of Canido,” promoted by one of its artist neighbors, recovered its identity and revitalized it from a physical, social, and economic point of view. Currently, the Meninas of Canido has become one of the most important urban art events in Spain and has receives international recognition. The aim of this article is to evaluate the impact that this action has had in the neighborhood. For this, we conducted a series of semi-structured interviews with the local administration, neighborhood association, the precursors of this idea, merchants, and some residents in general, in order to perceive the reception and evolution of this action.

Street Art Participation in Increasing Investments in the City Center of Bucharest, a Paradox or Not?

“…Thus, media can highlight its contribution when street art brings positive effects in some territories or is used as an alarm signal for certain spaces (abandoned, deteriorated, squatted, etc.). The involvement of the population is essential through actions of support and participatory involvement, being able to become a way of citizen action for urban change [6].…”

“…Burkner and Totelecan [54] demonstrated that it is not possible to verify the correlation between murals and increasing of residential market values in the real estate market in a district from Naples, but agreed that it has an impact on the social and physical sustainability of the place. Other authors focused, too, on their research on the sense of place and social capital [6].…”

“…The assertion of broader rights among minority populations will continue to contribute to the transformation of graffiti worldwide as a means of expression in the coming years. The graffiti and street art phenomenon are evolving towards increasingly complex forms in the 21st century, a period of tertiarization, linked mainly to motivations based on social and economic issues [6], along with intensifying the role of creativity and technology in cities. It was noticed that for creative energy especially after the economic crisis in 2008, projects including street art actions became the attention of many European programs (e.g., Creative Europe Culture, Interreg Europe-Murals for Communities) and in 2020, starting with the lockdown [7].…”

“…Among these strategies, street art may play an important role in urban planning as a transforming engine to regenerate public spaces [25]. Street art can be seen as a new vector of development that changes the dynamic forces, an urban dynamizer [6].…”