Investing in Spaces: Luxury, Benevolence or Business?

Abstract

This paper highlights the use of spatial transformation to shift the way people experience and engage with community. In essence, physical spaces can make people feel safe, well and like they belong. Moreover, they can infuse purpose into their habitual public and work-life experience. The examples shared include working with the Yale School of Management to help students reflect on and visibly communicate their role as leaders in business and society; the property development company Broder using public art to respectfully build a relationship with a neighborhood they are investing in; YouTube using the process of art creation to celebrate and communicate diversity in the workplace and lastly a public private partnership that brought together the Government, civil society and the private sector to address the erosion of trust and fear as a result of violent extremism in Kenya through a public art installation called Colour in Faith. Nabila Alibhai and her collaborators work to shift culture through investing in the transformation of spaces using art and urban design.