Creative Margins: Cultural Production in Canadian Suburbs

• Published in: Canadian journal of communication 2015, Vol.40 (2), p.347
• Main Author: Mowbray, Michael Paul
• Format: Review
• Language: English
• Subjects: Area planning & development; Bain, Alison L; Canadian culture; Cities; Contours; Creativity; Cultural policy; Culture; Economics; Home ownership; Middle class; Nonfiction; Planning; Suburban areas; Workers
• ISSN: 0705-3657; 1499-6642
• DOI: 10.22230/cjc.2015v40n2a2899

Alison Bain's Creative Margins: Cultural Production in Canadian Suburbs is a book about the real contours and possibilities of bigcity suburban cultural production, defined here such that the category "cultural worker" is essentially a cognate of "artist." The inner-suburban examples of Etobicoke and North Vancouver and the outer-suburban examples of Surrey and Mississauga are presented from varying angles of observation: as represented when lumped pejoratively into greater "suburbia" from an antagonistic position of socio-spatial centrality; as pragmatically considered in planning and policy; as related to by resident cultural workers in both the banal terms of everyday (in)conveniences and as a site for art-making and engagement; and, as complex places "under construction" and ripe for re-imagination. Bain's discussion of the "almost formulaic" (p. 108) policy prescriptions often favoured at the expense of such alternative priorities seeks to juxtapose the (actual and potential) vitality of spatially dispersed nodes of activity in suburban cultural networks against planners' and officials' frequent preoccupation with developing cultural quarters, leveraging cluster effects (first and foremost among commercial firms), and chasing up the symbolic and economic payoffs imagined from spectacular flagship buildings and events. What matters most, she argues, are the "unspectacular" sites and exchanges that arise at the intersection of "commercial, domestic, and community economies," characterized by elements of "generosity and conviviality" (p. 9), that stand in contrast to market and promotional logics. Warning against both the triumph of the experience economy in its spectacular mode and against the self-serving tendencies of municipal governments seeking to render concrete their professed commitment to cultural development in the form of iconic or "talismanic" landmark projects, Bain writes: "[creativity does not need to be extroverted, visible, or concentrated to be authentic, transformative, or powerful" (p. 139). The "consumptive and spectacular" mode must cede place to "production and practice" (p. 151). These discussions, straddling Chapters 5 and 6 (and suffused in the framing of the larger project), fit together very nicely. Bain does well at articulating the particulars of each suburban case, and though the broad contours of debate here arise significantly from the attempted transposition of neoliberal "creative cities" templates conceived around met