Community-driven cultural spaces and the COVID-19 pandemic

Community-driven cultural spaces (CSCSs) occupy a significant segment in the cultural ecosystem of cities around Europe. Regarded as third places, using Oldenburg’s concept, they are dedicated collective activities, but also offer social spaces for exchange between different actors. Organised around a specific space - often an abandoned building or an old factory - and community centred in their mission and practice, they have turned into laboratories of artistic experimentation and social innovation, attracting diverse audiences and often contributing to wider social and civil goals in the neighbourhood they operate in. The disruption in their physical operations during COVID-19 calls for a deeper understanding of the changes adopted in their ways of working, engaging with different communities and re-defining their space-related organisation. Forced to operate in a non-space condition, their adoption of practices will provide a new articulation of the notion of space between the physical and digital spheres. This chapter questions the emerging understanding and use of space in the practice of CDCSs and its re-organisation to adapt to ‘the new normal’ while responding to their function of third places that bring together communities for ‘doing together’. The chapter discusses challenges faced and strategies adopted during the confinement period and the months following it by focusing on case studies of such spaces in three European cities (Athens, Baie Mare and Nice). Data was gathered through desk research, interviews with management staff and field visits where possible in the framework of a wider research project, facilitated by the CREAMED research network composed by researchers from Universities in France’s southern region. © 2022 selection and editorial matter, Federica De Molli and Marilena Vecco;individual chapters, the contributors.