28 JUL 2025 (MON) 14:05–14:25

Reimagining the urban communities in Hong Kong and Singapore: Street murals as contested sites for production of space and urban belonging in global cities

Miss Liao Xiaochang

( Supervisor: Prof Ben Gerlofs )

Abstract:

In recent years, the proliferation of urban mural arts across diverse communities has become a focal point within academic scholarship, stimulating critical and interdisciplinary examination of their underlying socio-economic and cultural implications in contemporary cities. While these public artworks used to be portrayed as illicit and transgressive spatial practices, they have been re-purposed and transformed into developmental strategies to reproduce public space and reimagine urban communities. Beyond the investigation into urban aesthetics, existing literature has delved into the roles of street murals as an urban economic catalyst for symbolic economies and gentrification, illuminating their potential in stimulating urban redevelopment, attracting the creative class, and enhancing cities’ global competitiveness. Additionally, as a form of urban culture, the semiotic and social importance of street murals was also interrogated by many urban scholars who endeavor to decipher the symbolic meanings of mural arts and uncover the embedded social relations. Emerging scholarly discourses, such as creative placemaking and grassroots activism, are attempting to capture the traditionally underappreciated significance of street murals in people’s identity formation, community building, and urban power dynamics. Nonetheless, much of the prevalent urban studies on street murals have revolved around the Anglo-American cities, overlooking the spatialities and urban narratives in non-Western societies. Focusing on two representative Asian cases—ArtLane of Sai Ying Pun in Hong Kong and Tiong Bahru in Singapore, this research intends to illuminate how street murals contribute to the reproduction of Asian neighborhoods as well as elucidating the nuances of placemaking, community building, and sense of place contingent upon two different urban policies and circumstances.

The research will adopt a theoretical framework informed by several bodies of scholarship, including Lefebvre’s “spatial triad”, Foucauldian theories of governmentality, and the extensive literature on gentrification in a global context. Following the ethnographic tradition of neighborhood studies, the research will adopt an integrated qualitative methodology to understand the roles performed by street murals in the spatial transformation and reconstruction of the examined neighborhoods. On the one hand, discourse analysis of public statements, urban policy documents, and other archival materials will facilitate our understanding of street murals as top-down place-branding and governance strategies to shape public discourses of community culture and identities. On the other hand, visual analysis of landscape photography and thematic analysis of ethnographic data will shed light on people’s lived experiences, meaning-making, and negotiation or resistance against the cultural messages embedded in community street murals. By doing so, the research will advance theoretical debates on public arts, gentrification, and community redevelopment with its focus on the uniqueness of Asian urban societies. It will also interrogate the power imbalances of the right to the city and advocate for more participatory urban planning policies and people-centered community-making.