Create News 28: Utilising Political Imaginaries to Radicalise the Local

Jeanne Van Heeswijk is an artist who facilitates the creation of dynamic and diversified public spaces in order to “radicalise the local”. She works on long term community embedded projects that question art’s autonomy by combining performative action, discussions and other forms of organising and pedagogy in order to assist communities to take control of their own futures.

This is an edited transcript of a presentation given by Van Heeswijk in Common Ground’s Studio 468 in February 2020. Aligning with Common Ground’s Counter Narrative Neighbourhood Residency Award, this event was a platform for socially engaged artists and community development workers / activists to engage in an in-depth conversation about socially engaged art, spatial justice and urban change. This conversation event followed a two day Artists and the City Masterclass delivered by Jeanne and co-hosted by Create and Fire Station Artists’ Studios.