Oene Dijk

Do literature and film offer valuable ways to become aware of how people experience art in public space?

This research on the role of art in public space was prompted by the phenomenon of damaging, daubing or covering works of art in public space with graffiti. Is this wanton vandalism? Or can is be regarded as removing art because it is seen as an unwelcome intruder in public space? Does the opposite also exist: art that protects public space against vandalism? Influenced by the ideas of Henri Lefebvre on the production and experience of space and inspired by the research of Klaske Havik, particularly in her publication Urban Literacy, Reading and writing Architecture on the representation of architecture in literature, Oene Dijk investigates how public space is presented in literature and film.

The research is primarily literature research. It entails an inventory of the major national and international literature and films in which public space is presented. The research explores whether this representation of art in public space can generate an analytical model for further research on how art is experienced in public space. The objective is in the first instance a publication. This may be an article in a journal or some other relevant platform, or an independent publication. Dijk is also exploring ways of giving the research form in a symposium.