Strange spaces: A rationale for bringing art and artists into the planning process

The purpose of this article is to offer a rationale for bringing art and artists into the planning process. Although there appears to exist a nascent interest in planner–artist collaborations in contemporary planning practice and research, accounts of such collaborations in planning literature are generally patchy and often under-theorized. In this article I argue that art and artist-led activities can function as a powerful vehicle of communication in the planning process. The unique potential of planner–artist collaborations is based on the artistic licence that grants the artist a mandate to set the stage for an estrangement of that which is familiar and taken-for-granted, thus shifting frames of references and creating a radical potential for planning in a way that can be very difficult for planners to achieve on their own.