ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses how public art has been used to foster social inclusion in the city. Where exclusion reflects authoritarian imposition, it is in the colonial city that the alienating effects generated by public art, particularly that celebrating imperial control, foster political reaction and the will to decommemorate alien rule. These uncertainties become replicated in debates on the role of public art in urban regeneration. Indeed in the case of public art, doubts surround not only the contribution it might make to urban economic growth, but also to that of social inclusion. Initially, we look at examples in which public art intervention has been sought inclusively. Subsequently, attention focuses more on examples in which cultural domination has provoked resistance. For its advocates, there is an overall sense of the significant role that public art can play in culture-led urban regeneration, in the economic realm, but also in terms of culture and community.
