A-Place. Linking places through networked artistic practices
A-Place is a platform that promotes the creation, debate, and experimentation of the sense of belonging and identity of individuals and groups with their social and physical environments. By connecting experiences and meanings of place through educational and creative activities in six European cities - Barcelona, Bologna, Brussels, Lisbon, Ljubljana, and Nicosia – the platform aims to enhance the sense of belonging and identity in individuals and groups.
Cross-border/international
Belgium
Cyprus
Member State(s), Western Balkans and other countries: Italy
Member State(s), Western Balkans and other countries: Portugal
Member State(s), Western Balkans and other countries: Slovenia
Member State(s), Western Balkans and other countries: Spain
Barcelona, Bologna, Brussels, Ljubljana, Lisbon and Nicosia
Mainly urban
It refers to other types of transformations (soft investment)
Yes
Creative Europe
CREATIVE EUROPE Cooperation Project Agreement number 607457-CREA-1-2019-1-ES-CULT-COOP2
No
Yes
As a representative of an organisation
Name of the organisation(s): A-Place Type of organisation: Consortium of a Europe co-funded project First name of representative: Leandro Last name of representative: Madrazo Gender: Male Nationality: Spain Function: Project Coordinator Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Sant Joan de La Salle, 42 Town: Barcelona Postal code: 08022 Country: Spain Direct Tel:+34 606 55 76 32 E-mail:leandro.madrazo@salle.url.edu Website:https://www.a-place.eu/
A-Place is a platform that promotes the creation, debate, and experimentation of the sense of belonging and identity of individuals and groups with their social and physical environments. By connecting experiences and meanings of place through educational and creative activities in six European cities – Barcelona, Bologna, Brussels, Lisbon, Ljubljana, and Nicosia – the platform aims to enhance the sense of belonging and identity in individuals and groups. A diverse group of stakeholders, including residents, artists, architects, students, and policy-makers, are engaged in placemaking processes through site-specific art, creative spatial practices, educational and cultural projects, which give rise to a network of places.
Contemporary spatial production has rendered a plethora of non-places; spaces, in which people feel unable to create meaningful links. Non-places can be seen as a result of globalisation, gentrification, alienation, migration and mass tourism. To counteract these trends, A-Place engaged educators, artists and communities to actively reinvent notions of place latent in sociophysical environments.
The creative spatial practices carried out by A-Place contribute to bringing about meaningful places with better, more inclusive and supportive communities. A series of educational activities and creative interventions in public spaces were conducted over the last three-and-half years, adopting site-specific research that examines the role of artistic practices as a catalyst to enhance and connect individuals and social groups within communities, giving rise to new learning places which overcome the limits between academia and community and between disciplines. These activities gradually generated a network across distinct disciplinary, cultural and geographic boundaries, namely, a network of places.
placemaking
sense of belonging
community building
arts-based-research
community embedded-learning
We have carried out community-based educational and creative activities engaging residents from diverse academic levels and social groups in debates and actions which contributed to increasing their awareness of the preservation of natural resources in accordance with the principles of adaptability and recyclability.
- A Re-Place in Ljubljana established a dynamic learning platform that brought together experts, commentators, students, and community members to exchange their experiences and insights with the goal of revitalizing the Krater area. Architecture students revitalized the area by constructing new public amenities using materials sourced from the site.
- A Seedling Place, a global initiative to transform places by empowering communities through collective actions of planting carried out in multiple contexts. Actions that have taken place in partner cities (Brussels, Nicosia, Barcelona) and elsewhere in world (Venice Biennale) are compiled in a digital repository.
- A Place of Our Own, in Brussels, a learning forum with and within a community of NGOs, citizens, artists, researchers and governmental actors for the co-transformation of an all-male homeless shelter in Brussels. The materials available in the shelter were transformed into furniture pieces by architectural students and dwellers.
These activities, conducted in various European cities and settings, such as an abandoned area, a homeless shelter, and a multitude of locations shared in a digital space, are examples of sustainability education through community-embedded learning places, ultimately contributing to the transformation of the social and physical landscape.
We carried out activities which contribute to enhance senses and emotions of people from diverse origins in a diversity of places, to increase their sense of belonging and strengthen ties between community members.
-A Calm Place, in Schaerbeek, Brussels, included a a sensory walk organized by students for residents to enhance their spatial awareness, paying attention to the sounds, smells and textures. An art installation of red ribbons was a moment of silent reflection about the thoughts and feelings that emerged during the walk.
-ES_CULTURA, in Hospitalet, Barcelona, was a public art festival that brought together local school students, architecture students, artists, and neighbours to transform Plaça de la Cultura into a creative space for dance, music, cinema, sculptures, redesigned public amenities, and sound installations.
- video works to capture the complex layers that animate public space and the various constructs that define people’s sense of belonging have been produced by the LOOP Barcelona festival, including works about the integration of immigrants in European societies (videos La città dentro and The Place l inhabit), and about the caring, diverse, metabolic and emergency city (video TERRAPOLIS).
- photographs which express the sense of place and belonging have been produced by art and architecture students from partner organisations and shared through digital platforms (A Confined Place, during the pandemic) as well as from creators from all over the world through the series of A-Place MAPPING contests (150 works, from 67 cities)
- A Reconnecting Place, in Bairro do Rego, Lisbon, is a series of co-creating activities, including music, dance and video, to connect neighbours to the spaces they live in. A collaborative musical piece, inspired by the local soundscape, was created and performed in a flash mob dance event.
People coming from other cultures and economic situations, migrants, tourists or workers, perceive and understand the places where they settle -temporarily or permanently- differently. We carried out and supported artistic practices, in multiple forms, which help to unveil the multiple meanings underlying places, to make them perceivable to others. Some of the activities which contributed to raise awareness of discrimination and injustice are:
- In the Bodegem shelter in Brussels, A Just Place facilitated an inclusive network of residents to transform their living spaces with the help of activist architects, architecture students, and social workers. The result was a co-created collection of upcycled furniture pieces that added warmth to the ground floor environment.
- The video "La città dentro," by ZimmerFrei/Anna de Manincor, co-produced by LOOP Barcelona, showcases the experience of a young, visually impaired migrant living in Bologna. During the 2020 festival, LOOP hosted a gathering of audiovisual creators to discuss the ocular-centric bias in art production and emphasize the significance of the audio component in audiovisual works.
- "The Place I Inhabit" is a video that explores the struggles of migrant women working as domestic workers in Barcelona, highlighting their invisibility and lack of agency. It critically examines their segregation into domestic labor and their exclusion from shaping cultural heritage.
- A Future Place held a prose and poetry contest in partnership with the Amigos da Luz Association in Bairro Padre Cruz. Residents of all ages submitted texts about their experiences in the neighborhood. The contest winners recited their works to a public audience in a parking area transformed into a literary forum.
- The A-Place section of the Urban Visions festival in Bologna organized a yearly film contests about “Migrants, refugees and displaced communities”, and awarded a prize to films submitted by filmmakers over the world.
People from a diversity of cultures and ages, as well as political, civic and cultural organisations, were engaged in the planning, implementation and evaluation of the educational and creative activities:
- Residents of a social housing state in the Dardaar district, in Brussels, participated in the transformation of a playground and alleys and benefited from a renewed public places
- Children and their families took part in the design process to transform an abandoned site into a lively playground in Bežigrajski Dvor, in Ljubljana
- Homeless people living in the Bodegem shelter in Brussels renovated the ground floor of the building with new furniture pieces built together with architecture students and activists architects
- Neighbours of the Bairro Padre Cruz in Lisbon contributed to transform a parking space into open air literary forum during the award ceremony a literary contest organized with local associations
- Neighbours of Kaimakli in Nicosia helped to transform a square into a collective garden during the Pame Kaimakli festival
- Citizens from diverse ages and origins participated in urban walks organized by partners in Brussels, Hospitalet, Lisbon, Nicosia and Brussels, which contributed to enhance their knowledge about their living environments, and their perceptual and spatial capacities
- Bologna residents gained a new public space with a parklet used for learning activities, discussions and artistic performances
- Neighbours of Bellvitge in Hospitalet could enjoy a public space differently, after transforming Plaça de la Cultura into a space for collective creativity and artistic expression with multiple art forms
Local stakeholders were engaged in the planning and implementation of the activities carried out in the six partner cities:
- Municipalities from Nicosia, Hospitalet, Bologna, Brussels, Lisbon and Ljubljana have been involved in the planning and implementation of a diversity of events
- Neighbours associations have participated in the planning and implementation of the local educational and creative activities
- Secondary school students and teachers from Bellvitge participated in joint learning and teaching activities with architecture students, taking place in school premises and in public spaces. They were active participants of the ES_CULTURA public art festival.
- Architecture students from KUL Leuven, University of Ljubljana, School of Architecture La Salle and art students from NOVA University, participated in cross-disciplinary learning spaces integrating the academic curricula with community-embedded activities, in collaboration with local stakeholders
- Local civic and cultural organisations were engaged in different cities: in Hospitalet, Forum Hospitalet, Plantauno, Art Centre Tecla Sala; in Lisbon, Lisboan Incomum, Passa Sabi association; in Ljubljana, Trajna association, Youth for Climate Justice movement; in Brussels, The City is our Playground.
At the European level, A-Place was selected to be featured in the Fair of the New European Bauhaus that took place Brussels, 2022. In addition to a stand showcasing a planting action of A Seedling Place and videos of the project activities, there were three workshops delivered by partners during the fair.
Moreover, there were two activities included in the NEB Side Events programme, taking place in Hospitalet.
Through the digital platform A-Place MAPPING we have engaged stakeholders worldwide, in open calls dedicated to capture and express the sense of place with photographs and texts
A-Place aims to create transversal learning spaces that interlink artistic practices with educational programmes at different levels, from high school to higher education, in different settings, physical and digital, and cutting across multiple fields:
- Architecture and planning. In Hospitalet, Plaça de la Cultura became a vibrant learning and creative hub (A Weaved Place); in Brussels, residents were collaborated to revamp an abandoned playground (A Happy Place); in Ljubljana, students and residents brought new life to forgotten places (A Hidden Place), and in Bologna (A Visionary Place), a parking space was transformed into parklet providing spaces for learning, art, and events.
- Videos co-created by students and filmmakers in the city of Hospitalet, offered the possibility to explore new ways of learning in and with the community. The classrooms were moved from the university to the civic and cultural centers of the city’s neighbourhoods
- Photography. Art and architecture students, and creators from all over the world contributed to create shared learning spaces using digital technologies. Photographs of the places they lived, also during the confinement, were shared in the A-Place MAPPING online platform
- Literature. Residents in Lisbon participated in a literary contest, with works selected by a professional jury. The final ceremony featuring readings of awarded pieces transformed a parking space into a learning space where the memories and experiences with places were shared.
- Music compositions created by students and composers using sounds collected in Lisbon's neighborhoods fostered a new sensitivity towards the social and built environment
-Artists facilitated the creation of collaborative collages of Hospitalet, combining student photographs of the city with other materials. The creative process uncovered new meanings that wouldn't have been revealed through an architectural lens alone
A-Place is an open space for the interaction and exchange of experiences and knowledge about places. Life and education become inextricably interwoven in the activities aimed and fostering the bonds between communities and places.
A-Place brings togther artists, and creators from multiple disciplines, using a variety of art forms, in events taking place in various contexts: musicians and composers (A Sound Place), bands in the parklet of Bologna (A Visionary Place) and in a square in Brussels (A Calm Place), dancers (A Reconnecting Place), filmmakers (LOOP, Urban Visions, Pame Kaimakli festivals), photogaphers (A-Place MAPPING), writers (A Future Place), and multidisciplinary artists (A Weaved Place, ES_CULTURA).
A Confined Place was our creative response to the limitations imposed by the confinement, and opened up new spaces for the participation of citizens, students and artists in activities aimed at the construction of places, conducted entirely in digital space and on a global scale. This resulted in the A-Place MAPPING contest series, showcasing the potential of digital collaboration in this field.
A variety of strategies were applied to create new learning spaces that lie at the intersection between academia and community, involving students, faculty and artists from a range of disciplines. In A Weaved Place, learning activities which facilitated knowledge exchange between students and community members about the perception of public space were co-designed by artists and architecture staff; in A Calm Place, students and residents participated in exploratory walks and on-site workshops on furniture building; in A Hidden Place, workshops brought together professionals from architecture, urban design, sociology, geography, and arts; and in A Delicious Place, a process of documenting local histories was carried out jointly with community members and professional artists.
Community-based arts and education can help to foster action research and learning embedded in the sociophysical territory. Around the notion of place, these learning spaces integrate academia and community, art and architecture, digital and physical spaces, formalized knowledge and personal experiences. Through placemaking, we have embraced beauty, sustainability and togetherness with spatially and culturally situated action making. These discursive practices can foster a form of situated knowledge production involving experts and non-experts, which contribute to facilitating future professionals (architects, planners, artists) a better understanding of the issues which concern people and the skills to effectively incorporate them in the design practices.
The challenge for the further development of the project results is to convert the networked experiences gathered over time into a knowledge base which can be re-used and enhanced with new activities, carried out by third parties. With this purpose, the A-Place website includes NETPLACES, consisting of a Glossary and Themes related to the performed activities. Glossary and Themes are defined in a top-down/bottom-up collaborative manner, enabling the designers of the activities to define them before they are implemented, and then to reflect upon the results obtained.
The ultimate goal of the A-Place website is to serve as a source of inspiration for art and education related activities, by providing resources and experiences that are rooted in the community.
We have applied an action research and learning approach which is based on iterative cycles: 1. strategic planning, 2. implementing the action, 3. observation, evaluation and self-evaluation, and 4. critical and self-critical reflection on the results for the next cycle of action research. The planning-performing-reflecting-and-evaluating cycles are carried out throughout the four years of the project’s lifetime.
Placemaking and creative actions are planned in diverse locations utilizing the resources that are available, such as contacts with communities and existing institutional programmes, through a bottom-up and iterative process. The initial selection of cases is pragmatic and based on the project partners’ capacities and previous experience. A more specific design of the activities is then developed based on the issues that are relevant for the local communities. Most activities are problem-oriented fieldwork case studies. Other activities are carried out at a global scale through digital media.
After the placemaking activities have been performed, a reflection process is undertaken to identify common topics and shared strategies. This reflection is crucial in the overall process of creating a network of places and establishing a global sense of place. It involves creating a shared glossary and to identify themes of debate derived from the work done by partners in the various cities and locations. The Glossary and Themes are available in the NETPLACES section of the project website to facilitate further collaboration and knowledge sharing among project partners beyond with other potential actors.
The impact assessment of the activities is part of the design phase of the activities, and takes into consideration the relevance of the actions and the impact on places and communities. The subsequent qualitative analysis is based on texts, transcripts and recorded material, and on the interpretations of these materials made by partners.
In a globalized world with continuous movement of people (workers, tourists) and groups (massive migrations), experiencing a constant blending of cultures and values, a "place" has become a closed space where people retreat to protect themselves from the perceived invasions of others. To counter these exclusive claims to places, A-Place seeks to create an open and dynamic network of places that is built from relationships across multiple spatial scales, cultures and disciplines.
Place identity refers to the attachment between individuals and the spaces they inhabit. The alleged unity that once existed between a physical place and the closed community to which an individual belongs has diluted in our global societies: places are multiple, as so they are the communities, as well as the links between both, places and communities. What we need, as Massey contended, is “a global sense of the local, a global sense of place”.
In our global culture, lived space is mediated by a world of images constantly flowing through digital networks. Audiovisual media, produced and distributed with digital media, are transforming the sense of place in our multicultural, transient societies. A-Place digital platform contributes to intertwine the local and the global around the sharing of place experiences, using a diversity of artistic expressions.
The four-year project will end in September 2023; the work done so far is available in the project website.
The process and results of the activities implemented in the last three-and-a-half years are documented in different ways in the project website and in the project social media channels, with reports, videos, and photographs.
A closing program is being planned for May/June 2023 in Barcelona, Brussels, and Lisbon. The programme will feature exhibitions, presentations of results, and discussions with experts and representatives from the communities involved. The debates will focus on the impact of the project’s educational and creative activities on the communities.
The rich collection of creative and educational activities and the outputs produced by the consortium during the project will certainly be a source of inspiration to continue developing lines of work with the communities involved. The themes explored during the project will also be further developed by the partners, either individually or collectively, in future projects.
A-Place is also actively involved in the NEB community on new learning environments and plans to share its experience into this forum.
