Spaces of representation

Whilst there were differing political subjectivities at KPC, as described in the last section, these ideological and political stances have tangible impacts upon the physical space in the building. The various groups that use KPC influence how spaces in the building are used.

The micro spaces at KPC are in constant flux each day, the two large halls that are for hire at KPC taking on different identities for the various groups that inhabit them. There are mats brought in for Nicole’s dancing classes; there are chairs set up for a film screening;

then the halls are cleared for children to play football at the play scheme. In the evenings, the building sometimes adopts the identity of a music venue buzzing with people, drinking and socialising at a live music event. The field notes I took recalling the first time that I attended KPC express the dynamic nature of the space.

After entering the cold, damp, musty building we went inside one of the halls, into a warm, damp stench left behind by the previous Zumba class to begin our session.

The ladies hurried out of the double doors carrying rolled up exercise mats and water bottles. After a few brief encounters, holding doors and smiles, we occupied the space and began a very different activity from the Zumba class, and the building instantly took on a new function and contained a very different crowd. (Notes from field diary)

These complex negotiations are also materialised in the partitioning of space at KPC. The ways the building caters for certain groups is also contested; the initial decision to begin renting spaces out as art studios was a pragmatic decision to generate income and was heavily debated at the time. The particular ways in which the building is physically arranged and set up for different purposes speaks to how it serves different groups.

‘Through the practising of place, the negotiation of intersecting trajectories; place as an arena where negotiation is forced upon us’ (Massey, 2005:154).

In the main hall of KPC, there is a large wall with a canvas depicting a Scottish landscape.

It is very large and imposing; people notice it and it has become somewhat of a talking point in the building. During my interviews and a focus group, the topic of this painting came up, without my mentioning it. The debate around it symbolises the throwntogetherness of KPC, many people expressing different views on it with regards to the how saw KPC as a predominantly community space, a political space and/or an arts space. There have been ideas from some people at KPC to make the space more ‘neutral’

to attract people and make it more user friendly for certain groups, mainly referring to the arts users who need neutral spaces for exhibitions:

I think that a next step is to think about do we need to make the spaces even more neutral in order to make them even more accessible, for all different types of things and users? Just like walls should they all be white? So you can project on any wall and stuff. (Ammie)

In another discussion with Liam and Michael, which mentioned the canvas, they explicitly described how the painting actively rejects the space being used as an arts space:

Liam: as soon as we start talking about it as a space, though, is it us that rejects it? Or is it the building that rejects it? That big painting rejects it, that’s why we like that big painting in there, it’s really just rejects the possibility of this being a contemporary art space, you just could not have a serious exhibition in here with a giant canvas there like that, I think it’s really good! I think its apolitical painting!

Me: What is that style though?

Liam: Don’t really know!

Michael: ‘Traditional Scottish!’

Liam: Yeah like some arts and crafty looking or something…it’s painted by one of the studio users, it’s not a bad painting of what’s essentially a massive bog.

Michael: It’s also as Scottish view, it’s a traditional view, it’s not modern.

Liam: It doesn’t have any people in it.

Me: What do other people say about that painting?

Liam: People just think it’s really cool, most people just say it’s really massive!

The discussion around the painting was vested with cultural capital; we knew the various styles of art, yet we were actively persuaded that this was an inverse symbol of anti-cultural capital. We clearly represent

agents endowed with the pertinent categories of perception, i.e., with a practical intuition of the homology between the space of distinctive signs and the space of positions, social positions are immediately discernible through their visible manifestation. (Bourdieu, 1987:11)

Thus, the art is exclusionary, in line with Bourdieu’s understanding of art in Distinction (1984). The view in the painting is also interesting, as it is an apolitical view in that it is very ‘traditional’ and rejects contemporary art trends and therefore renders the space redundant in terms of being a contemporary art space. Ammie even covered up the canvas in order to hold an art exhibition in the hall:

We had some exhibitions from the Camera Club, who are just down the road, and we built two pairs of white flats, book ended, so they could mount things, but we can use for so many events they kind of masked the really busy wall in the main hall, you know the one with the big canvas, so they masked it. (Ammie)

However, in this conversation, we also see the ‘unfashionable’ nature of the art as political art; in that it is ‘unfashionable’ prevents the space being used for the exclusive purpose of being a gallery, in line with Rancière’s understanding of art and politics. ‘Rancière situates the fundamental inequivalence he sees between the politics of aesthetics and the aesthetics of politics within the gap that aesthetics introduces between two regimes of the sensible:

the representative and the aesthetic’ (Vallury, 2009:230). In this conversation, we refer to both the aesthetic nature of the art, its ‘badness’ or ‘unfashionable’ nature, and then we recognise its representative qualities as separate and therefore political. The ways that Liam and Michael imbued the space with political meaning and symbolism speaks to how they politically relate to KPC.