Making a Scene: Place-Making Imagination, Artistic Production, and Narratives in Urban Space Bruce B. Janz Imag(in)ing Place My thoughts start from a deliberate misreading of the conference title. “Imaging Place” slides easily, perhaps too easily, into “Imagin ing Place”, by adding just two letters, “in”, and hypostatizes into “Place-Making Imagination”. Imag(in)ing place – inserted as a minor note, hardly anything. Imagination produces images, we might think, and so the misreading is slight at best, and well within the spirit of the conference. But we should not slide too easily here. This small addition, this interruption into imaging, may suggest more than appears on the surface. “In”, as a preposition, suggests a move toward the center, a move “inward”. If we are in the room, we are bounded by the walls; if we are part of the “in” group, we are not, at least, on the outs; if we are “in love”, we are, perhaps dominated and infused by love. But “in” as a prefix, that’s different – it is “in”discreet, “in”temperate, and possibly even “in”hospitable. In other words, “in” not only moves inward, but it negates, it even moves outward. “Intemperate” suggests a move away from a civilized and balanced center. “Interminable” suggests a move beyond temporal boundaries, if not outside of one’s patience. In, in short, inscribes a tension. Inserted into a word, we don’t quite know whether it is intentional, a verbal interloper, or even at all interesting. But there could hardly be a better word to start with, when place is concerned. Just word play? After Derrida, how can it “just” be word play anymore, and anyway, why is play such a bad thing? And yet, the word play always moves us toward something else, something that allows a little light to shine in, if that does not suggest a 1