Art and Artists: new cultural urban transformation policies in public space

In art a process of continuous change is ongoing, the artworks are coming out of museums and there is more contact between artists and the public with a greater emotional participation. Indeed, currently artists are often involved in dialogue with the cities, entering in the urban requalification processes with a sustainable approach that put emphasis on the social process more then on the art objects. Indeed, art can be seen no longer as a mean of human expression but also a tool for local development, to stimulate co-design initiatives for the transformation of 'neighborhood' spaces, to achieve regenerative objectives with effects not only on the economic life but also on the well-being of the community. In this framework, the paper will present the role of art in creating sense of community and contemporaneously contributing to the creation of suitable policies for cultural urban transformation. The case of Manifesta art biennial which interacts every two years in a different European city to offer "heterotopic sites of emergent cultural production" will conclude the paper.