[The following text was originally published as part of the doctoral thesis titled 'Polisfonia: Stimulating political dialogue through sonic practices in the public space' by Matteo Pra Mio.]
Commonly, public space is understood as all that urban space which is publicly owned and freely accessible to everyone, and consists primarily of streets, squares, parks, and other types of open spaces. Although most public spaces are outdoors and open, these features are not essentially necessary for a space to be considered public, in fact, buildings and indoor spaces of various kinds can qualify as public spaces too provided they meet certain characteristics.
So, what exactly are the essential features that make public space such? And what makes public space political?
The adjective public, which characterises public space, comes from the latin word publicus, a contraction of populicus, meaning 'from the people' and emphasising the collective use expected of such space and eventually its shared ownership. These characteristics align with the definition of public space of the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat (2018). SDG Indicator 11.7.1 Training Module: Public Space. United Nations Human Settlement Programme) which describes it as 'all places publicly owned or of public use, accessible and enjoyable by all for free and without a profit motive' and highlights a dimension of accessibility and enjoyment such space should feature.
All these features are certainly fundamental in defining public space but not all of them contribute equally to its perception of publicness (understood here as 'the quality of being public'). Public space could in fact be public from a legal point of view but not be perceived as such in practice and vice versa. In fact, while ownership is crucial in defining public space in legal terms, in living terms it is much less influential in shaping the perception of publicness than accessibility, management and inclusiveness are (Juan Lia, Anrong Dangb, Yan Songc 2022). In other words, what makes a space public in a practical everyday life perspective is mostly its accessibility, inclusivity and self management rather than its ownership. The more a given space is accessible, inclusive and self manageable by the community living it, the more it is public. This seems to be the reason why in Bozen/ Bolzano, and likely many other cities, the publicness of certain spaces such as streets, parks and small urban niches/squares is perceived as much greater by young people with respect to other public spaces such as large squares and public buildings on which they have much less agency.
This understanding of public space, focussing primarily on the 'lived sense' and its political dimension, strongly resonates with Hannah Arendt's concept of 'space of appearance and action' according to which, regardless of its legal form, public political space can only exists as such because we live it publicly through dialogue and action which 'not only has the most intimate relationship to the public part of the world common to us all, but is the one activity which constitutes it' (Hannah Arendt (1998). The Human Condition 2nd edition. pg.198. University of Chicago Press).
To frame this understanding with other words, public political space exists because of people's actions rather than because of the space itself.
This perspective stresses the importance of political dialogue and action in the 'making' of public space, implying also its transitory nature. In fact, although according to the UN public ownership is what guarantees a more stable access and enjoyment of public space over time (When ownership of space is public people have the right to claim it and it is protected by law. This should guaranty, at least in theory, that people can enjoy the use of public space for longer than if it would not be legally protected), the publicness of space is not a constant, on the contrary, it implies a constant redefinition through political dialogue and action that takes place wherever people come together for a common project. Coming together in dialogue however is not simple, and presupposes an openness to confrontation and conflict, or as Chantal Mouffe pointed out in her talk For an Agonistic Public Sphere (Chantal Mouffe (2002) For an Agonistic Public Sphere. In: Okwui Enwezor, Carlos Basualdo, Ute Meta Bauer, Susanne Ghez, Sarat Maharaj, Mark Nash, Octavio Zaya (ed.) Democracy Unrealized Documenta11_Platform1. Hatje Cantz Verlag, Ostfildern-Ruit. 2002, pp. 87-96.), 'too much emphasis on consensus, together with an aversion to confrontation, engenders apathy and disaffection with political participation.’ A democratic society requires therefor debate about possible alternatives which is much more likely to take place in a politically vibrant and open public space that in a closed consensual one.
If we try to escape from the political space we enter a condition that Arendt calls 'worldlessness' losing both the contact to a shared reality and the capability to listen, understand and dialogue with other people that have contrasting stances to ours. In this context, in which a dynamic political public space is lacking, a far less desirable space may open, one of alienation and simultaneous identification with closed and exclusive divides like nationalism, religion, and ethnicity. As pointed out by Simon Springer in his paper Public Space as Emancipation (Simon Springer (2010). Public Space as Emancipation: Meditations on Anarchism, Radical Democracy, Neoliberalism and Violence. Antipode), public space is thus the place 'where the discovery of both power and demos is made' a 'spatial medium to the frustrations subalterns feel with regard to systems of archy', and its contestation is what makes a democracy alive.
During the first Polisfonia cycle in 2021, when the use of public space in Bozen/Bolzano was strictly regulated and open spontaneous association was denied, the political essence of public space suffered a severe blow from which, it has not fully recovered yet. Most young people with which I have talked shared a sensation of apathy, detachment from the political, loss of the sensation of public space ownership and loss of agency, signalling a perceived radicalisation of political opinions towards antagonistic stances, especially in the 'adult world', but also a desire and hope for positive change.
Public space seemed thus to be more than ever the ideal setting to work on political dialogue from an educational perspective, redefining it as a space of constructive political dialogue in the attempt to promote empowering political exchange.