| Public homeplaces are community sites of creativity, collaborative wellness and resistance which in the past have been given far too little attention, so little in fact that they have been written about as "a tradition that has no name" (Belenky et al. 1997). The current revitalization project, occurring in downtown Albuquerque, New Mexico, calls these spaces of dialogue and possibilities (Greene 1988), back into awareness as necessary locations to build community, nurture new types of leadership and to collectively question the way a city is produced. Albuquerque's latest revitalization plan is based on a master developer's vision, public and private investments, and entertainment strategies that, if successful, will result in a highly anticipated gentrification process attracting wealthy investors from other states into the central downtown corridor. This expensive process not only lacks accountability and citizen input but also, whether successful or not, negatively impacts people from lowest socioeconomic class who have traditionally made urban centers their home. This dissertation addresses a contemporary trend that is occurring in cities throughout the world and advocates for practical place-based methods, specifically "public homeplaces" that respects people of all ages and socioeconomic backgrounds to actively participate by constructing an art identity, developing a public voice and by collaboratively creating a shared public culture.; Specific approximations of historical public homeplaces (i.e. the Northern Settlement House Movement, the Taos Art Colony and the Federal Art Project's Community Art Studios), ranging from the late nineteenth century to the 1930's are examined and critiqued in order to understand what made them work and not work and why. The Southern Settlement House Movement and the women's neighborhood networks of the early Civil Rights Movement are adopted as a model of solidarity from which to underpin the current efforts to re-establish the necessity of public homeplaces.; An arts-based urban public homeplace, OFFCenter Community Arts Project in downtown Albuquerque is described as a practical way to provide equitable access to public space especially for the very poor, stimulate sustainable art making among diverse community members, as well as develop means for challenging contemporary urban practices. This dissertation is a call for producing many more public "third spaces," those geographical locations that invite hybridity, creativity and community health in order to secure a viable intervention tactic necessary in times of capitalistic re-rendering of the spatiality of public life. |
