Branded space; branded consumers: Spaces for consumption and the uncomfortable consequences of complicit communality

Abstract

The branding of spaces for consumption can only be fully understood in the context of a broader sociological process in which the very cities in which we live have themselves become branded entities. In this article I will consider the suggestion that the contemporary city is best understood as what is primarily a space for consumption. I will argue that the cultural sphere, and specifically galleries and museums, play a key role in the maintenance of cities as branded spaces, whilst pointing out that this process frames the everyday experience of the city as an experience filtered primarily through the processes that consumption implies.