This book presents the COVID-19 pandemic as an opportunity to re-assess the neoliberal politics, xenophobia, and racism that have undermined community cohesion in the United Kingdom since 1979, and which have continued largely unchecked through the last four decades Guided by three interconnected ideas used throughout to scrutinise the meaning of culture as a way of life - Raymond Williams' structure of feeling, Stuart Hall's conception of the conjuncture, and Chantal Mouffe's agonistic pluralism - Sarah Lowndes finds that a renewed sense of mutual regard and collective responsibility are necessary to meet the unprecedented challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic She begins by reflecting on public gatherings in Britain from 1945 to 2019, moving on to analyse five key examples of public gatherings affected by the pandemic 2020 onwards: Chinese New Year, the UEFA Champion's League Final, VE Day street parties, Black Lives Matter demonstrations, and the cancellation of Eid Ul-Adha celebrations A thorough examination of how ideas proliferate and spread through our society, public sphere, and collective consciousness, this book will appeal to scholars and upper-level students of cultural studies, cultural history, sociology, and politics

This book reflects on the motivations of creative practitioners who have moved out of cities from the mid-1960s onwards to establish creative homesteads. The book focuses on desert exile painter Agnes Martin, radical filmmaker and gardener Derek Jarman, and iconoclastic conceptual artist Chris Burden, detailing their connections to the cities they had left behind (New York, London, Los Angeles). Sarah Lowndes also examines how the rise of digital technologies has made it more possible for artists to live and work outside the major art centers, especially given the rising cost of living in London, Berlin, and New York, focusing on three peripheral creative centers: the seaside town of Hastings, England, the midsized metro of Leipzig, Germany, and post-industrial Detroit, USA.

This book considers the history of Do It Yourself art, music and publishing, demonstrating how DIY strategies have transitioned from being marginal, to emergent, to embedded. Through secondary research, observation and 30 original interviews, each chapter analyses one of 15 creative cities (San Francisco, Los Angeles, Dusseldorf, New York, London, Manchester, Cologne, Washington DC, Detroit, Berlin, Glasgow, Olympia (Washington), Portland (Oregon), Moscow and Istanbul) and assesses the contemporary situation in each in the post-subcultural era of digital and internet technologies. The book challenges existing subcultural histories by examining less well-known scenes as well as exploring DIY "best practices" to trace a template of best approaches for sustainable, independent, locally owned creative enterprises.

This book reflects on the motivations of creative practitioners who have moved out of cities from the mid-1960s onwards to establish creative homesteads. The book focuses on desert exile painter Agnes Martin, radical filmmaker and gardener Derek Jarman, and iconoclastic conceptual artist Chris Burden, detailing their connections to the cities they had left behind (New York, London, Los Angeles). Sarah Lowndes also examines how the rise of digital technologies has made it more possible for artists to live and work outside the major art centers, especially given the rising cost of living in London, Berlin, and New York, focusing on three peripheral creative centers: the seaside town of Hastings, England, the midsized metro of Leipzig, Germany, and post-industrial Detroit, USA.

Sarah Lowndes looks back at the rise of the Glasgow art scene through the decades, from community art to Thatcher, New Wave to Teenage Fanclub. Charting the emergence of performance and conceptual-related art, she looks at the background from which the art of the last 40 years emerged, the social atmosphere which was able to influence artists, musicians and writers who would go on to be known worldwide.