Art / culture / economy to democratize society. Research in placemaking for alternative narratives

Project Information

trans-making

Grant agreement ID: 734855

DOI

10.3030/734855

Project closed

EC signature date 14 December 2016

Start date 1 January 2017

End date 30 September 2022

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Total cost

€ 1 858 500,00

EU contribution

€ 1 858 500,00

Coordinated by

RELAIS CULTURE EUROPE ASSOCIATION
France

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - trans-making (Art / culture / economy to democratize society. Research in placemaking for alternative narratives)

Reporting period: 2019-01-01 to 2022-09-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

At a time when Europe has to address key challenges, such as radicalization and migration, there is an urge to create a new narrative for Europe. Research in humanities and social sciences may help create this new narrative. Specifically, there is an urgent need to better understand the role of culture in defining « public space » and the role of culture in enabling or problematizing cultural integration, whilst respecting diversity.
The trans-making project aimed to establish a multilateral network of research and innovation staff active in the fields of placemaking / place-based art activities as a space to create alternative narratives for societal and economic renewal. The objective was to strengthen research capacities, through the exchange of knowledge and expertise between academic and non-academic partners from Europe and Third Countries in a shared research programme.
The project's main conclusions are the needs to renew the terms of the public debate on art and public space. In that aim, new types of artistic, cultural or research competencies for the academic and non-academic world must be further fostered and developed. The political dimension (in the sense of a judicious, diplomatic, and reasoned way of acting) of cultural actors draws thus the emergence of a function of “diplomacy”, i.e. a capacity to hold all the terms of the public debate and to share it.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

It is commonplace to say that globalization is producing this simultaneous double effect, on the one hand "identity traps" that are closing in on societies, and on the other hand, cultural, artistic and scientific hybridizations that must be observed with this broadest possible disciplinary base that trans-making was proposing.

These new hybridizations are proposing new knots with the new territorialities (places/locations) that they have instituted in the social fields of European and worldwide thought.
All over the project, and in a more sensitive way during the second period of the project, the partners have more specifically sought to:
- determine what these new territorialities were; those places of anchorage of intellectual practices, disciplines, textual and cultural forms that shape our social and democratic realities,
- find a way to interact with them,
- understand the processes at work in the production of these 'cultural zones', both physical and collective, such as 'third spaces', spaces of intersection, or immaterial spaces such as new symbolic forms, digital or other.

The research carried out in Work package 1 (Collecting/documenting) enabled us to categorize 3 main types of on-going changing relations and dynamics in the public space: i) Changing cultural spaces: traces, voices, relation, memory, history, narratives, etc.; ii) Changing cultural conflicts: heritage, knowledge, emotion, resilience, rights, laws, etc.; iii) Changing cultural commitment: commoners, placemaking, ethically committed, socially responsible, etc.
The research carried out in Work package 2 (Exploring/experimenting) enabled us to better understand the tactics for shaping the public spaces in its whole social and democratic dimension. Through the research, we can see 3 main spheres on exploring new tactics: i) Reclaiming the public spaces over conflicts, hidden and un-seen potential, etc.; ii) Participative producing of the public spaces through empowerment of the people, commitment of the bodies, communication, emotions, etc.; iii) Collaborative producing of the public spaces with commons, social relation, mediation, interaction, etc.
The research carried out in Work package 3 (Performing) enabled us to define 3 main spheres on how to perform new cultural narratives in the public space: i) Revealing underlaid narratives: influence, domination, resistance, conflicts, etc.; ii) Expressing new narratives: everyday making, plural identity, plural memory, etc.; iii) Interacting and disseminating new narratives: public space/private spaces, interaction, dissemination.
The research carried out in Work package 4 (Designing) enabled us to define 3 main spheres on designing new practices: i) Thinking data; ii) Thinking methodology and iii) Thinking cultural services.

A total of seven networking events took place.
1) A Summer Academy “Reclaim Creativity! Arts in the Public Realm” has been organized in London, in June 2017.
2) A Spring Academy “Enacting cultural democracy: the location of narratives” has been organized, in Valencia, in March 2018.
3) A conference-gathering named "Pubic in the Making" has been organized, in October 2018, in Istanbul.
4) On Emotional Materialism was an International Summer Forum that took place in Ljubljana in August 2019.
5) Curated by Crvena, the exhibition “Europa Enterprise” took place at Cité internationale des arts in Paris between October and December 2021. This exhibition aimed at showing the results of the art-based research within the project.
6) The final conference “trans-making factory” took place in Paris in November/December 2021 around the theme: “Art and democracy in a biotic society”.
7) Workshops of Culture held in Lublin (Poland), in September 2022, an additional final dissemination meeting on issues facing modern cities and the impact of culture on urban development.

The reader titled “Art, culture and economy to democratize society – how art-based and design-based research contribute to knowledge production” offers an analysis of the contribution of artistic creation, design, and more broadly, the contribution of an artistic medium to research and knowledge production.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The research has dealt with key questions regarding democratic and social issues linked with culture and public spaces today. These have opened new ways to approach, research and develop placemaking/ place-based art activities regarding: definition of the space, production of the cultural areas, performing of new narratives, etc.
A mapping of the renewal of fields, geographies, concepts and practices has been carried out. This mapping results from an analysis anchored in collective cultural practices in a global and European, multicultural, and multilingual space. It outlines the contours of a European public policy for culture at the service of democratic, economic and ecological transitions.
The project has allowed to consolidate an active transdisciplinary European and worldwide multi-lateral network able to engage in research and innovation both individually and collectively. For the whole duration of the project, we totalled 162 staff members and 23 partners – academic and non-academic, thus enlarging the capacities and networks of the staff members.
Staff members built strong and mutually supportive relationships with hosts, based on a shared interest in the host cities, common strands of research, and growing exchanges that spanned disciplines, research fields, national borders and a diversity of languages. This all gave a rich and active reality to the existing framework, based on a) strong field-based research on key issues to understand the European and worldwide public space; b) a basis for new narratives to empower academics and non-academics to act together in a rapidly changing environment; and c) a foundation resource from which to develop new research and entrepreneurial skills.

Logo of the project