Making Spaces Public

Urbanists and planners need to engage in broader and messier practices if they are to design inclusive and accessible public spaces. The production of space is as much a social and political process, as a physical one, and identities of places are often latent, contested and invisible. A new genre of artists and creative practitioners are engaging in public space, using site-based practices that catalyse new uses, build new constituencies, and amplify marginalised voices. Moderated by Mel Dodd, this roundtable event brings together five leading creative practitioners from Monash Art, Design and Architecture (MADA) – Gene Bawden, N’arweet Carolyn Briggs, Emily Floyd, Timothy Moore and Sarah Lynn Rees – all working in the public realm, to reveal a more representative city and explore the ways we can make spaces truly public.