Not Just a Place to Park Your Car: Park(Ing) as Spatial Argument

Abstract

In 2005, an art installation transformed, a leased parking space into a temporary park. When the image disseminated online, it sparked a global movement to rethink urban space. The PARK(ing) Day movement enacts a spatial argument at the intersection of localized PARK(ing) installations in particular places and the dissemination of the concept of PARK(ing) Day in online spaces. We show how residual traces of temporary installations exist in online spaces that shape the broad dissemination and development of this movement and its message, which then influence the construction of PARK(ing) installations. In exploring this play between place and space, endurance and ephemerality, we highlight how the movement constrains and enables the tactical deployment of PARK(ing) installations as spatial arguments.