Urban alternative cultural production in Turin: An ecological community approach

Abstract

From the ashes of the creative city paradigm, there is a growing awareness of the urban creative economy as an adaptive complex system of intertwined actors and institutions. Yet, especially in the European context, little attention has been given to understanding informal and alternative art spaces and venues that contribute to the vibrancy of the urban cultural scene. Drawing on the emerging creative and cultural ecology literature, the article proposes a conceptual and empirical framework to analyze alternative cultural production as an ecological community. After providing a conceptualization of distinct types of alternative cultural organizations, we investigate the economic, spatial, and relational structure of more than 50 art spaces in Turin, Italy, an industrial city that has experienced a radical urban transformation based on culture-led development strategies. Using both a quantitative and qualitative approach, our findings unveil a distinction between centers pursuing artistic specialization and those more oriented toward aggregating diversified cultural activities. The two types of organizations coexist within the community, but the difference in their mission and operation influences the organizational structure, the involvement in neighborhood revitalization, and features of the local network of collaborations. From a spatial perspective, while the centers tend to cluster in the main peripheral areas of social and urban transformation, the analysis points out possible different locational choices and spatial dynamics for the two types of organizations in distinct areas of commercial and real-estate-led transformation.