Maggie McCormick — Adjunct Professor

The Routledge Companion to Art in the Public Realm includes a chapter by Adjunct Professor Maggie McCormick that profiles many important RMIT projects.

ACT: Activating City Transience
Abstract: In an era of rapid global urbanisation, the ‘city’ is constantly reshaping itself through demolition and re-building, through juxtaposition of new architecture against old, and the unexpected against the everyday. In addition, digitalisation has expanded understanding of urban space beyond its purely built expression, reinforcing a sense of urban transience. This chapter explores activation, within an expanded notion of public as a space of transition, through art practices that challenge embedded spatial perceptions and patterns, and in the process builds a new sense of urban identity. It does this through making conceptual links between urban art disruptions within city transience separated by time, as seen in an approach to practice as well as perceptions of the nature of public space in the central city of Melbourne, Australia. Grounded in the urban thinking of Henri Lefebvre and Catherine Régulier that recognises the value of practice, related activations are discussed: Platform to Urban Laboratory; Sculpture Walk to Urban Animators; No Vacancy to SkypeLab. Each draws out how the urban disruption of the former laid the groundwork for the latter, revealing shifts in city transience and the relationship between public practice, public space and the public.