In this guest post, Dr Nian Paul describes the results of the research “‘Public art for whom?’: Art and its exclusionary publics in Delhi”, funded by an International Fellowship from the Urban Studies Foundation and developed at the Institute of Advanced Studies, University College London, under the mentorship of Dr Lakshmi Priya Rajendran.
My doctoral research critically examined state-led urban creative regeneration strategies in Delhi across three sites: art districts (Lodhi Art District), art-led slum beautification (Coolie-Camp), and art in urban interstices. The study builds on scholarship on public art and urban materialities, focusing on how actors within a hybrid-cultural governance framework reshape the ways in which public spaces are accessed, experienced, and shaped by their “citizens” in Global South. It identifies three major points of intervention: a) public art as networked sites in the global mobility of financial and creative capital in India and beyond; b) emergent forms of cultural expression and their affective dimensions in public spaces, shaped by changing regimes of state power and the rise of cultural nationalism in India; and c) differential access to public spaces and the re-materialisation of marginalised identities in urban spaces.
The Urban Studies Foundation (USF) generously supported my nine-month fellowship at the Institute of Advanced Studies, University College London, where I was mentored by Dr Lakshmi Priya Rajendran and Dr Pushpa Arabindoo. I worked on three journal articles, one essay, and a research ethics guide, and disseminated my research through academic conferences, invited lectures, and public engagement events. In weekly seminars at the Institute of Advanced Studies and in other workshops, I presented draft papers and received critical feedback from interdisciplinary scholars working on the built environment, cinema and urban archives, performance in urban spaces, indigenous architectural histories, critical developmental planning, and urban reparative justice in cities of the Global South.
Creative displacements and material reconfiguration of public spaces
Building on a conceptual inquiry led by Deutsche’s “urban-aesthetic discourse” and Rosenberger’s taxonomy of hostile architecture, my first paper examines the processes and spatial implications of state-commissioned public art (sculpture parks and murals) in the cultural regeneration of urban interstices in Delhi, such as subways, flyovers, and transitional urban surfaces. It moves beyond the dominant rhetoric of beautification to critically interrogate how public art is materially embedded within broader socio-political projects aimed at constructing a new vision of “urban” India. Rather than treating public art as an aesthetic afterthought, the paper positions it as a spatial and ideological tool for reshaping urban imaginaries, regulating public space, and reproducing dominant cultural narratives.
While not overtly defensive, such art interventions participate in the symbolic and material reconfiguration of public space, contributing to spatial hostility. In Delhi, this is evident in two distinct but interconnected ways: (a) the physical displacement of informal activities and publics deemed incompatible with the aestheticised vision of a “world-class” city, and (b) the cultural dislocation of minoritarian identities through the visual and symbolic imposition of a majoritarian aesthetic—in this case, a modern Hindu urban imaginary through murals depicting Hindu gods, mythological characters, etc. These extend the paper’s argument by showing how aesthetic interventions translate into exclusion.
Beyond creative placemaking: navigating politics of community, access, and identity in Delhi
Building on my previous research with socially engaged artists in marginalised neighbourhoods of Delhi and in response to the provocation posed by the Urban Surfaces Research Network workshop, I developed a paper that extends a critique of creative placemaking in Lodhi Art District (one of my case studies) through the situated geographies of “community” and how they navigate the politics of access in such spaces. The paper maps out different uses of art districts during their production and after, unravels the pluralities of “community” in art districts, and examines how public art can play a critical role in aspirational urbanism, identity assertion, and the reconfiguration of social boundaries. It breaks through the homogeneous idea of community in public art projects and the ethics of co-producing public spaces in the art district. Taking cases of community interventions in the form of murals and artistic engagements, it argues that co-production is a deeply political act. While it holds potential for democratic engagement, state-led cultural regeneration often commodifies aspects of co-production, concealing deeper structural exclusions.
These questions fed into three major interventions during my Fellowship. First is the Practising Ethics project, co-developed with my mentor, which offers open-access resources for built-environment researchers and practitioners, including a lexicon of ethical principles, practical guides, case studies, and reflections on blind spots and “hotspots” in ethical work. In our contribution, “#9 Decolonial Ethics in Research”, we chose to use language that is more accessible and personal than the usual academic tone, which often creates distance. Our aim was to make decolonial ethics feel grounded, conversational, and open to multiple voices.
Secondly, I organised and co-chaired a panel at the RGS-IBG Annual Conference 2025, titled “Creative (dis)placements: Geographies of Urban Public Spaces in Cities of the Global South”. In addition to running a successful panel, I collaborated with a scholar to propose an edited book for the Routledge Critical Spatial Futures series, edited by Dr Rajendran and Dr Nezhapi Dellé Odeleye. In addition, I undertook a short teaching engagement as a Module Tutor for the “Making Cities” course at the Bartlett School of Architecture, contributing to seminar discussions and assessments on film as a critical urban research tool.
Thirdly, in relation to this wider outreach and public engagement, I co-organised one and a half days of an immersive exhibition series, “Between the lines of everyday public spaces”, at Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London, for the UK’s biggest Humanities Festival, Being Human, led by the School of Advanced Study in partnership with AHRC and British Academy. Co-curated with my mentor and doctoral students from UCL, the event drew on “humanities research in spatial justice, memory studies and decolonial urbanism to reimagine urban life as a mosaic of voices and relations challenging what is remembered, who belongs and who is excluded”. Through immersive installations, short films, and participatory art workshops, the event brought together a diverse array of audiences, including students, artists, and the public, to map affective geographies of belonging, heritage, food, and public spaces in London.
In summary, my time as a USF International Fellow helped advance my career by globalising my research, democratising access to urban scholarship, and providing space and mentorship to consolidate my academic voice through writing, dissemination, and interdisciplinary collaboration.