ABSTRACT
This chapter speaks to creative placemaking’s heritage (Markusen and Gadwa, 2010) through the collaborative citizen-led social practice project Wrecked! On the Intertidal Zone (2014–16), an interdisciplinary project involving citizens, artists, and activists, drawn from Southend-on-Sea, Essex, UK, to respond to water pollution and high shipping volume in the Thames Estuary, UK.
Wrecked! used situated knowledge and citizen science drawn from local stories, histories, and locally-led initiatives to problematise the economically focused policies prioritising London, using art to promote a local agenda in local government. In doing so, it showcased how social practice placemaking (Courage, 2017a, 2017b) can be used alongside arts-led resilient practices (McKeown, 2015) to galvanise local residents, turning local interests into local action. Using Bourdieu’s (1986) understandings of different forms of capital this chapter highlights how Wrecked!, as a community-based and artist-led initiative, recognises the value of arts beyond instrumentalising them to boost economic development as posited in creative placemaking thinking. Wrecked! instead utilises artistic practitioners’ cultural capital, outlining the need for new forms of knowledge to redress the damage of economic capital’s repeated prioritisation. By utilising different practitioners’ different forms of capital, this chapter argues creative placemaking can benefit communities once local voices are heard.
