Lessons and possibilities of “keeping” place in planning and public art
In the past few years of urban planning discourse, discussions of “creative placemaking” have increasingly involved its counterpart “creative placekeeping.” But what is the dividing line between these two approaches to public space? One notable difference is in their relationships with newness; making place means renewal and revitalization, but keeping place asks questions of the value of what was already there.
Placemaking has been a staple of urban planning vocabulary for many decades, referring to an interdisciplinary process of improving the liveability of public spaces. As the Project for Public Spaces explains, placemaking allows people “to re-imagine everyday spaces, and to see anew the potential of parks, downtowns, waterfronts, plazas, neighborhoods, streets, markets, campuses and public buildings.” The addition of “creative” to the term highlights the importance of arts and culture for revitalizing spaces in imaginative ways.
You Were Here Creative Placemaking Installation by Meghan Cheng
An example of creative placemaking, motion-activated lights and 3D-printed butterflies reimagine the everyday space of a storefront as part of the STEPS Public Art Residency and I HeART Main Street BIA Program
Video Credit: Selina McCallum
Artist Credit: Meghan Cheng
This feature is part of Fieldnotes, a public art blog series by STEPS that promotes inclusive and innovative public art through interviews, storytelling, case studies, and knowledge sharing.
While there are plenty of equitable, community-engaged examples of the practice, creative placemaking can come attached with limiting assumptions, including the idea that something about a space’s current state must be corrected. Taking the term at face value, we might assume that there is no pre-existing “place” until a space is creatively reimagined; that an identity-less site needs intervention to become a place.
In comparison, placekeeping is a relatively new term, but its underlying philosophy has a long history. Indeed, it names many of the everyday practices and efforts of residents to preserve the aspects of their community and spatial identity that they value the most.
According to the US Department of Arts and Culture (USDAC), an American artist and activist network, placekeeping refers to “the active care and maintenance of a place by the people who live and work there.” Placekeeping is not just about physical spaces and material structures, but also about “keeping cultural memories associated with a locale alive [and] supporting the ability of local people to maintain their way of life.”
One easy summary is that placemaking renews while placekeeping preserves, but the two concepts aren’t always in opposition. For example, placemaking often involves creating more accessible public infrastructure. This can support placekeeping practices by ensuring that a space remains livable for the most vulnerable members of a community.
Equitable Placekeeping: Planning for Spatial Justice
In some cases of creative placemaking, the reimagining of a public space can result in both cultural and infrastructural losses for the local community. Indeed, creative placemaking has been criticized for beautifying gentrification and the resulting displacement of low-income residents from “revitalized” neighbourhoods.
How do we place-make without undermining the pre-existing community? With consultation and consideration of the current residents, creative placemaking projects can empower communities to transform their spaces according to their own needs and interests. To that end, placekeeping offers an approach that balances placemaking with an appreciation for the cultural memories and personal practices that animate a neighbourhood.
However, the value of the placekeeping practice depends upon exactly what placekeepers seek to preserve. After all, not all neighbourhoods are built equal or treated equally. When advocating for the interests of a local community, we must keep in mind the dynamics of privilege that exist between spaces.
Indeed, spatial and geographical issues figure crucially into issues of social justice. In his work on spatial justice, urban theorist Edward Soja emphasizes that “all geographies have expressions of justice and injustice built into them.” According to Soja, spatial justice must, at the very least, address “the fair and equitable distribution in space of socially valued resources and the opportunities to use them.”
Placekeeping can work both for and against spatial justice, in some cases preserving the unequal spatial distribution of resources. In the 2024 book Co-Creative Placekeeping in Los Angeles: Artists and Communities Working Together, Brettany Shannon makes a clear distinction between Discriminatory and Equitable Placekeepers. The Discriminatory Placekeeper is exemplified by members of affluent communities who seek to maintain the exclusivity of their neighbourhoods, blocking out marginalized groups.
Examples of discriminatory placekeeping behaviour include resistance to the construction of public spaces that might attract “undesirable” visitors. Historically, discriminatory placekeeping practices such as racial steering have been instrumentalized to preserve the racial homogeneity of white neighbourhoods.
Street art decries the displacement of low-income residents due to gentrification
Photo Credit: Matt Brown (Licensed by CC2)
In contrast, Shannon writes, Equitable Placekeepers “are working collaboratively to sustain the current residents and place from gentrification.” According to Shannon, artists can participate in equitable placekeeping through “Co-Creative art, including […] participatory and socially engaged art.” By working with a local community and with attention to equity issues, artists can critically engage in spatially just placekeeping practices.
Of course, truly equitable placekeeping on Indigenous land requires respecting Indigenous agency. After all, two of the fundamental forms of spatial injustice we encounter are the violent displacement of Indigenous peoples and the lack of recognition of Indigenous sovereignty in settler-colonial states like Canada and the United States.
As part of the Evergreen Resource Hub, the Civic-Indigenous Placekeeping and Partnership Building Toolkit is a significant resource for civic organizations, offering the insight that Indigenous approaches to place should be the default: “By virtue of cities taking place on Indigenous lands, and that more than 80% of Indigenous peoples in Canada live in cities, large urban hubs are in fact Indigenous Cities.” Placekeeping should respect the pre-existing meanings and communities attached to a locale, recognizing that cities on Turtle Island are already always Indigenous.
Placekeeping Interventions: Community-Based Public Space
But what does placekeeping look like in practice? In his essay “Spatial Justice: Rasquachification, Race and the City,” Roberto Bedoya describes the placekeeping practice of Rasquachification, a Chicano aesthetic drawing from “the imaginary structured by resourcefulness, and prompted by poverty, which is distinct from the imaginary imposed by the monetization of neighborhoods.” Rasquache, which Bedoya illustrates with the example of reusing a car tire as a flowerpot, is tactical and grassroots.
Community members at work on a co-created mural of the heart berry in Toronto’s Rowntree Mills Park
Photo Credit: Anushay Sheikh
Through shared knowledge, community members can become empowered to shape and preserve their neighbourhoods through artistic practices. Since 2020, the interdisciplinary public art community project From Weeds We Grow has engaged Toronto’s Rexdale community with the intersections of art and environment. To enrich the artistic knowledge of the community and to deepen community members’ connections to nature and land, From Weeds We Grow has hosted workshops with a wide range of activities from basket-weaving to spoken word, and illustration and Indigenous beading circles.
Working with the community, STEPS seeks to bring the memories and meanings of Rexdale to life through art and storytelling, with an emphasis on Indigenous and multicultural approaches. In 2023, a co-created mural at the entrance of Rowntree Mills Park shared Indigenous teachings of the heart berry while encouraging pedestrians to enter an underutilized area of the park.
The mural, which was completed through hands-on paint days with the Rowntree Mills community, was the culmination of Heart Berry: Strengthening Our Connections, a three-part community-engaged series led by Lindsey Lickers, Mushkiiki Nibi Kwe. Through a virtual sharing circle and a beading workshop, the series explored themes of resilience and human connection to nature, strengthening ties to the natural space of the Rowntree Mills community.
Heart Berry Beading Circle as Part of From Weeds We Grow
Lindsey Lickers, Mushkiiki Nibi Kwe leads a beading workshop to share the teachings of the heart berry
Video Credit: Wynne Kwok
In the eyes of STEPS Cultural Planner Ima Esin, this co-created heart berry mural is a prime illustration of how to bring placekeeping into public art practice. “When I speak with folks from the community, whether they helped paint, provided input, or just had a conversation with us,” Ima explains, “they don’t say the mural, they say our mural.”
The mindset of “our mural” is crucial to a strong sense of place. “That ownership, that sense of empowerment—that is how we move from placemaking to placekeeping,” Ima adds. “Using the tools we have, we can empower folks to care for and take pride in their place.”
By fostering community connections and environmental consciousness, community-engaged art can encourage a creative placekeeping approach to everyday spaces that emphasizes what we should protect and preserve rather than what we can unmake.
About the Writer
Wenying Wu (she/her) is a student of English and Chinese literature beginning her MA in Comparative Literature at the University of Toronto in September of 2024. Her research interests include science fiction, body horror, and the representation of dreams. Wenying was the Cultural Content Writer at STEPS during the 2024 summer season.
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