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Luisa Bravo
Maggie McCormick
Fiona Hillary

Abstract

This ‘Art and Activism in Public Space’ special issue of The Journal of Public Space presents a spectrum of practices and theoretical reflections on creative practices in public space, across a diverse range of public environments including in the Sudan, China, Australia, UK, Mexico, Cuba, Italy and Colombia.  Through articles and portfolios, the reader is drawn into both familiar and unfamiliar scenarios.
Articles and portfolios in Art and Activism in Public Space issues are not asked to respond to a specific theme. The intention of this publication is to reflect on what emerges at the intersection of art-based research, creative practice, theoretical frameworks around contemporary public practice, and the changing nature of public space.

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How to Cite
Bravo, L., McCormick, M. and Hillary, F. (2022) “Creative Practices in the Public Realm”, The Journal of Public Space, 7(3), pp. 1–4. doi: 10.32891/jps.v7i3.1660.
Section
Editorial
Author Biographies

Luisa Bravo, City Space Architecture

Luisa Bravo is a public space scholar and passionate activist, cultural entrepreneur and academic. She has more than 20-year experience in the professional field as urban planner and designer with a specific focus on public space. Her expertise is grounded in extensive academic postdoctoral research and teaching in Italy and Europe, the United States, Middle East, Asia and Australia. Throughout her academic career, she held different academic positions, in Italy and abroad, and she has been the recipient of prestigious grants and awards. She is Adjunct Professor in Urban Design at the University of Florence.
Luisa is Founding Member and President of City Space Architecture,a non-profit cultural association based in Italy with a mission to studying, making, spreading and sharing public space culture, through an interdisciplinary approach, involving art and architecture. She is the Founder, Editor in chief and Journal Manager of ‘The Journal of Public Space’, established by City Space Architecture in partnership with UN-Habitat, the United Nations Human Settlements Programme. 
Luisa is a renowned speaker at major UN-Habitat global summits, such as Habitat III, the UN conference on Sustainable Development, held in Quito (Ecuador, 2016) and the World Urban Forum (2018 in Kuala Lumpur; 2020 in Abu Dhabi; 2022 in Katowice), where she organized networking and training events and curated exhibitions in cooperation with global stakeholders.  She was also selected to attend two High-level meetings on the implementation of the New Urban Agenda, held at the UN headquarters in New York and convened by the General Assembly (2017, 2022).
Luisa’s lecture ‘Stand up for Public Space!’ - www.standupforpublicspace.org - has been included in the UN Habitat Global Urban Lectures series (season 4 - 2017), an initiative gathering expertise from renowned international scholars and professionals who excel in their fields.

Maggie McCormick, RMIT University

Maggie McCormick is an academic, artist, curator, writer and researcher who has exhibited, curated and undertaken research projects, presentations and publications in Australia, Europe, Asia and South America. McCormick holds a PhD from the Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning at The University of Melbourne and is Adjunct Professor at RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia and Hon. Professor at Reutlingen University, Germany. She established early innovative public space art interventions with the City of Melbourne, beginning with No Vacancy in 1990 and extending into urbanart local and international public space projects, that ran until 2006. https://bit.ly/3jXkLwo The regularly changing program made claim on vacant shops, tram shelters, staircases and other vacant non-art public spaces. Her research focus currently is on how art practice contributes to understandings of the changing nature of urban consciousness and conceptualisation of public space in an urbanized and digitalized world. Together with Professor Henning Eichinger, Reutlingen University, Germany, she initiated and co-curated SkypeLab 2014-2019 that created a global network of universities (Australia/Germany/China/Colombia/Brazil/Spain) and its predecessor Skypetrait (Australia/Germany) 2012-2013. www.skypelab.org Recent exhibitions include 1000 Pixel exhibition at the State Representative of Baden-Württemberg Berlin, Germany. Recent publications include ACT: Activating City Transience in Cameron Cartiere, Leon Tan (eds.) The Routledge Companion to Art in the Public Realm 2020 and Carto-City Revisited: unmapping urbaness 2017 in Elizabeth Grierson (ed.) Transformations: Art and the City. McCormick is a Strategic Advisory Board member of The Journal of Public Space (City Space Architecture, Italy and UN-Habitat) and Co-editor of the Art and Activism in Public Space for The Journal of Public Space's special series.

Fiona Hillary, RMIT University

Fiona Hillary is a lecturer and Industry Fellow in the Master of Arts - Art in Public Space at the School of Art, RMIT University. Fiona curates the Urban Laboratory for RMIT University’s Centre for Art, Society and Transformation. The Urban Laboratory uses live test sites of practice to explore urban contexts engaging art practices in a research and project delivery model in partnership with local government. She is a practicing public artist, collaborating on range of temporary and permanent investigative projects. Her most recent work 37°57'02.5"S 144°38'02.0"E marks the beginning of a creative cartography for the future. Fiona's research interests are in collaborative practice, the use of socially-engaged art practice as research methodology in public spaces with a specific focus on temporary installations. Fiona is a PhD Candidate at Deakin University exploring the role creative practice holds in our rehearsal of the future. With Shanti Sumartojo she co-authored the paper Empty-Nursery Blue: On atmosphere, meaning and methodology in Melbourne street art published in Public Art Dialogue, (2014: 4: 2 :201-220).

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