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.
