The paper analyzes trauma as the source for creativity in the urban space. There are two strategies to find a way to live with traumatic experience. The first way, according to Sigmund Freud, is "the work of mourning", which by constant remembering and repeating trauma in the language of tropes and figures allows to integrate discontinuous traumatic experience thus partly expunging trauma. Another strategy for dealing with trauma was described by Eric L. Santner's term "narrative fetishism". This strategy supposes a refusal or inability to admit trauma substituting mourning for narratives, which seemingly do not have any connection to trauma itself. I can find outcomes of this traumatic creative strategy in urban spaces of contemporary megalopolises. The paper analyzes art objects in Yekaterinburg city, namely, the gangsters' tombstones and the cathedral that has been used for political and ideological purposes, the street art activity of painter Radya. © 2011 Copyright Vilnius Gediminas Technical University (VGTU) Press Technika.
Original languageMultiple languages
Pages (from-to)122-130
Number of pages9
JournalLimes
Volume4
Issue number2
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2011

    ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Sociology and Political Science
  • Cultural Studies
  • Political Science and International Relations

ID: 38015616