How can Tilburg City Center Map be deconstructed by the social imaginaries of international students in the city of Tilburg by participatory methodologies?
How can international students use the psychogeographic mapping practice of dérive to experience the aesthetic of Tilburg's urban environment within the city's cultural texture in the areas defined on Tilburg City Center Map?
How does the psychogeographic explorations of international students be mapped through experimental video making to reveal the multiplicity of Tilburg and the imaginaries of international students?
city identity
city identities are socially constructed and involve the relationship between individuals and their surroundings, influencing each other within urban environments. In this sense, the term ‘city identity’ refers to an ongoing process that is observed in the urban environment.
urban environment
The urban environment is an extension of human needs and values that reflects the desires and imaginaries of the city's inhabitants. It gives information about the construction of the city.
JUXTAPOSITION OF
CITY IDENTITIES
Mapping Tilburg Through Psychogeographical Perspective of International Students
The city is not simply a physical space but also a cultural and social space that is being constructed and reconstructed by its inhabitants. Unlike a fixed city image, mapping practice represents a temporary city that is open to change from an individual’s perspective. According to ‘International Journal of Social Imaginaries’, people collectively and pre-theoretically make sense of their social and personal existence, to constitute a collective space of meanings or semantic space for co-being (Adams, S., Smith, J., 2022). In that sense, public space is an imaginary space that resists one dominant image of the city where participants produce meaning continually in the urban environment.
I investigate new ways of seeing the city through the social imaginaries of people from different cultures by co-creating with international students. Aiming to understand how they create meaning and how the city of Tilburg is constructed through multiple ways of mapping in three areas, I focus on the performative aspects of mapping and challenge traditional mapping practices through psychogeographical and experimental video mapping. In that way, the project provides alternative ways of engaging with the city to reveal the multiplicity of its identity and represents international students’ social imaginaries.
Each week, I organized walks with three participants in one of three designated areas of the TCC map: Dwaalgebied, Winkelgebied, and Veemarktkwartier. The walks are conducted individually. They follow the tasks provided to them during the experience, with each task having a set timeframe. They captured both the surplus and non-surplus aspects of the urban environment and engaged in conversations with citizens. After the walks, participants gather to reflect on their experiences by translating them into drawings. They then verbally share their drawings with the group.
12 participants attended the experiment in two months. Walks took place on Sunday and one time Saturday.
