WEAVING PEOPLE AND PLACES SEMINAR

BACKGROUND (SEE THE TEXT: ANNEX 1 COMMUNITIES):

Communities-in-place. In a highly connected world, communities are meshes of social ties that individuals can activate in different ways, choosing where, how, when and for how long to allocate their personal resources (in terms of time, attention, skills, relational availability). Therefore, they are not to be seen as (relatively) stable, lasting, homogeneous groups of people, when compared to communities of the past, but as spaces of possibilities enabling a variety of collaborative encounters thanks to which, ideas can be exchanged, problems can be solved and/or new perspectives can be opened.

Moments of encounter. These are the very special moments in which a project generates a new collaborative encounter. That is, the moments in which two or more persons meet and do something together in a given place.

SEMINAR AIMS

• To contribute to the understanding of contemporary communities-in place.
• To describe some specific collaborative encounters that CoR-related projects have created.
• To move from these specific encounters to discuss both the nature of the new communities-in-place and the role of art and design in the communities-in-place generation and re-generation.

PROMPTS FOR THE ‘MOMENT OF ENCOUNTER’ PRESENTATIONS

Focus: a meaningful ‘moment of encounter’ generated by your project. Use your time to tell of the encounter in the most vivid way, not of the project per se. (Please note that, after this presentation there will be time to give more detail in the parallel group discussions and in the final plenary presentation of the group results).

Timing: 6-8 minutes

Format: use images and/or performance in order to make the encounter presentation the most lively possible.

PROMPTS FOR THE PARALLEL DISCUSSIONS

The encounter in itself

• Who: involved actors
• Why: encounter motivations (for the different actors)
• How: different actors’ roles (more or less active, collaborative, relational)
• Where: physical context role (more or less important in the encounter definition)

Overview 1

The encounter and its contribution to building community-in place

• What kind of social ties is this encounter generating?
• How does this encounter contribute to a community-in-place building process?

Overview 2

The encounter in the art and design perspective

• What has been the project team’s role in making this encounter happen?
• In which way has art and design used its specific skills and sensitivity in this process?
• What can we learn from this experience?