Social Creativity and Post-Rural Places: The Case of Montemor-O-Novo, Portugal

This article discusses a particularly successful example of arts-based social creativity in a rural setting: case of Montemor-o-Novo, in Southern Portugal. The article is divided into three parts: first one critically reviews literature on relationships between arts, creativity and social change; second provides a historical-geographical account of trajectory of Montemor-o-Novo and highlights its social creative dimensions; and third part puts forth a number of conclusions on post-rurality as a distinctive strategy of socially creative local development. [Social Creativity and Post-Rural Places: The Case of Montemor-O-Novo, Portugal] > Cet article jette un regard et analyse une experience particulierement bien reussie de creativite sociale basee sur les arts dans un contexte rural: le cas de Montemor-o-Novo, situe dans le Sud du Portugal L'article est divise en trois sections: la premiere section fait etat de quelques contributions theoriques sur les relations entre les arts, la creativite et le changement social; la deuxieme, trace un portrait historico-geographique de la municipalite et met l'accent sur sa creativite sociale; et, finalement, la troisieme section propose quelques conclusions a propos de la post-ruralite en tant que strategie distinctive de developpement local socialement creatif. Introduction This article looks at a particularly successful example of arts-based social creativity in a rural setting: case of Montemor-o-Novo, in Southern Portugal. It is argued that analysis of its trajectory cannot be satisfactorily made with recourse solely to usual interpretive categories from conceptual and theoretical debates on creative cities and social innovation in urban settings: while essential to understanding dynamics that have been taking place in Montemor-o-Novo, those categories need to be complemented with an understanding of specific ways in which rurality and post-rurality have been mobilised in this particular context. In order to do this, article begins by critically reviewing some of insights from literature on creativity, arts and social change; on role of arts in place development; on public art and public spaces; and on socially creative milieux: This is followed by an account of trajectory of Montemor-o-Novo as an example of arts-based social creativity. Finally, some conclusions are drawn on post-rurality as strategy for socially creative local development. Social Creativity Creativity, Arts and Social Change If we regard culture as the creative element of our existence--expressions of who we are, where we come from, and where we wish to go (Jeannotte and Stanley 2002:136), passage into post-modernity has certainly provided culture, and arts in particular, with a much more central role both in people's lives and in lives of their communities. From 1970s onwards, certainties that characterised grand visions of world that underlay modernity have given way to doubt, inconstancy and 'dreamlike fickleness'. The loss of sense of transcendent (Ruby 2002) is, in a way, overcome through arts. Yet, in different ways, arts have also contributed to representing and even anticipating future: Some artists express in their work feelings or codes that forecast future or that indicate symbolically that present is no longer viable (Smiers 2005: 9). It is this latter capacity that is most crucial in context of uncertainty that characterises post-modernity. In this context, aesthetisation of daily life (Smiers 2005; Ley 2003) has proceeded apace. Increasingly, human body, home, and city have become targets par excellence of interventions driven more by celebration of aesthetics than by values of utility (Ley 2003). …

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