Assistant Professor Dimitra Kanellopoulou (National Technical University of Athens, Greece): “Creativity nourishes a wide range of professions structural for the function of the City as a social formation”
At the 15th International Conference on "Culture & Creativity" Assistant Professor Dimitra Kanellopoulou is willing to share her experience in urban planning and human geography. The topic of culture and creativity are large ones and give us the opportunity to federate scholars and professionals from different disciplinary backgrounds. From her position as a professor and researcher on public space and tourism issues, she finds it interesting to participate in this debate as I consider that a great part of the discussion around Culture and Creativity, takes as a tangible space of expression, the urban space, created by several political, social forces but also exposed to and shaped by cultural dynamics. The Professor strongly believes that a discussion on the subject should include questions and fieldwork experiences concerning the way people inhabit their everyday environments, invest on public space, claim urbanity, etc. The shift that has been taking place after 2000 in actions linking cultural activities bottom-up to urban transformation. It’s a must to question the impacts of such a shift and to highlight the important connection with the debate about environmental crisis and rapid urbanization.
Since 2019 she holds the position of associate professor at the ENSAPM School of Architecture in Paris. Her research focus on urban walking, public space, soft mobility and tourism issues applied to spatial planning using both quantitative and qualitative methods and a variety of perspectives (economic, sociological, psychological) to study this area. Her teaching experience include topics of urban planning theory, urban tourism and fieldwork methodology. She is a member of the Research Laboratory AAU within the research team CRESSON (France). In 2022, she holds the position of Visiting Professor at Politecnico di Milano, coordinating the master class course Contemporary Cities.
How is creativity helping cities? How important is it for a city to be creative, especially in our times – in a world of transitions?
Creativity is present from the very first moment to the creation of the City. The latter, as an amalgam of competences, cultures, is based on creativity for its existence, survival, and evolution. Not only does creativity accompany scientific progress but it also nourishes a wide range of professions structural for the function of the City as a social formation. Arts, Politics, but also everyday life are transcended by forms of creativity that lead people claiming sociability, change, citizenship, and a common future. In our days of recurrent crisis and uncertain destiny for many territories across the world, creativity is in fact a line raft that can bring people to find sense in everyday life, reason to keep hoping, to keep inventing solutions to problems, and to believe in a shared world worthy of being inhabited and protected.
Dear researchers, 