Pleasurescapes is a humanities-led collaborative research project that explores the ways in which public places of pleasure in European port cities have unfolded social forces of integration in the past and present and thereby fostered traits of urban practices. The project focuses on the port cities of Hamburg, Rotterdam, Gothenburg, and Barcelona, and brings together researchers with museum curators, stakeholders of cultural industries and NGOs. Next to multiple academic publications, we create a travelling museum exhibition with accompanying magazine and theatre production, and we set up an open access database to make our research sustainable and increase its impact.
Funded by HERA as part of the EU Horizon2020-programme “Public Spaces”, Pleasurescapes runs from 2019 to 2022.