The ecological cultural center is a civic space for co-creation and sustainable artistic experimentation. This project was born from the regeneration of a disused municipal site by the community and local actors in the neighborhoods of Les Planes and Sant Josep in L’Hospitalet de Llobregat. At the end of the year 2020 we start the construction of the building of the ecological cultural center. This space is designed with the neighborhood and a network of local actors and is built through self-construction with volunteers and local agents. The project was born with the conviction that culture transforms, generates opportunities, has the capacity to raise awareness and excite, and is respectful of the environment in which it operates and can respond to contemporary urban challenges and vulnerable populations.

Call for Mediation and Research artistic projects 2022

Through interventions in micro-urbanism, public art and participatory processes, we want to reverse the pathologies and chronic deficiencies of our cities in order to improve them and make them more sustainable and efficient. These actions help us to revalue spaces and carry out very wide community intervention projects, which add value to the territory and reverse situations of inequality.
We seek to select between 6 and 8 proposals for Mediation and Research, at least 4 in the mediation mode and two in the Research mode, the call is aimed at artists, curators, researchers or mediators who work with art and sustainable development (social, economic, environmental and cultural). Intervention, community involvement and care for the environment will be valued.
Between 1 and 2 places will be reserved for artists from outside Catalonia or internationally to work with the community of L’Hospitalet, scholarships will be offered for transport, accommodation or meals.

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El centre Objectius Metodology Art residencies Art and community Care for the environment

Ecological and cultural center

The Ecological Cultural Center seeks to reinterpret the territory as a common, related space that makes visible what is not in the focus of major debates and reinvents itself from the margins and peripheries. This way of working makes us transform our environment into an open, plural, public, recycled, sustainable, self-produced, common city. A prosperous, empowered, ductile city, of collective management and responsible in its consumption. Therefore, the project always transforms urban territory and people from an ecofeminist point of view. When we talk about ecological sustainability and culture, we will first assume culture as a communication channel to generate new environmental values (rational use of the territory and its resources) and then rethinking the activities closely linked to its field of action: tourism, gentrification , nature, heritage. Acting from an ecological perspective, cultural and artistic projects, links us to the reality of our territories. We connect with projects from the natural and the collective, generating new visions of the environment and expanding the fields of action of art.

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Construcció del centre

La construcció del centre es va realitzar entre el setembre i el novembre de 2020. Van participar tant empreses i cooperatives del sector de la construcció (Zarca, Fundació Engrunes, Cooperativa La Paleta i Cooperativa Toquem Fusta) com centres educatius (ETSAB, INS Provensana, INS Llobregat, Escola Joaquim Ryura) i més de 40 voluntaris, la majoria estudiants, veïns i veïnes del barri.

Entenem la participació de les persones destinatàries com una crida a la corresponsabilitat. La participació té normes fixes, la corresponsabilitat, en canvi, implica renunciar i cedir, implica una societat i unes institucions poroses. Si els centres de decisió estan tots atomitzats, per molta participació que existeixi, sempre hi haurà els mateixos canvis. És per això que hem de plantejar-nos substituir la paraula participació per corresponsabilitat en algunes àrees i pràctiques d’actuació o com a mínim complementar-les.

Objectives, mission and values

Objectives

1) Increase cultural demand and access through a strategy of democratization and cultural democracy that facilitates the participation and transformation of recipients.

2) Fostering porous institutions by developing a network of active and horizontal social participation with the person not only as a recipient but as a generator of knowledge.

3) More sustainable cities and societies aware and co-responsible for our social, environmental and economic impact on the environments we live in.

Mission and values

We live in a historical moment where the unsustainable predominates and the links between culture and the values of social impact and sustainability are, in general, virtues that give validity and relevance to this type of practice to create new solutions to these problems. The challenge we want to address with this project are the different forms of inequality and injustice that significantly increase the risk of social exclusion of people living in the city of L’Hospitalet de Llobregat. These inequalities align with what we consider unsustainable cities and societies and affect the three main areas of sustainable development goals: Environment, social and economic sustainability.

The social and cultural, innovative, relational and creative base of the ecological cultural center constitutes it as a space of great community value. The project is born to respond to the challenges detected and promotes experiences that are another way of doing things and that allow us a new knowledge about the territory, the city, public management and the social application of innovation. The actions we promote discover the possibility of empowering ourselves as citizens and converge on the following factors: strengthening self-awareness and self-responsibility, improving existing processes and effectively incorporating innovation in the latest processes that take place, making visible the its value in this chain. In this way, citizen culture and the DIWO (Do it with others) philosophy allow us to generate spaces for co-creation and critical positions that point out, analyze and highlight problems and situations that affect urban territories and their inhabitants; and propose, drive and empower smart and alternative solutions to obstacles. Actions that advocate, as a whole, for other forms of coexistence in favor of a new open citizen culture.

LISTEN AND DETECT

Creation of the map of local agents and allies, bilateral and multilateral meetings to detect surcharges in line with the purposes of the project in order to define the line of short, medium and long-term actions jointly with local actors and recipients.

DIALOGUE

We form the circles of participation and self-management and open the process of finding solutions and designing the actions of the project. Regular sessions are held open to the entire community and allies of the project. This phase affects the design of actions of democratization and cultural democracy and promotes the porosity of the institution.

ACT

To train the recipients in observation, analysis and to strengthen skills and knowledge in order to carry out the planned changes or projects. This phase seeks to empower the person and provide them with the capacity to influence their environment and quality of life, as well as the rest of the community. We understand these actions as a link between art and education, which breaks down barriers to access and transforms participants.

Art residencies and sustainable development

Objectives

1) Increase cultural demand and access through a strategy of democratization and cultural democracy that facilitates the participation and transformation of recipients.

2) Fostering the values of self-responsibility and care for the environment through artistic practice.

3) Generate critical thinking and train recipients to analyze, evaluate and make decisions that impact their environment.

4) Promote co-creation and citizen culture as a means of proposing real, agile and more sustainable solutions to contemporary urban challenges.

Art residencies and sustainable development

According to Australian analyst Jon Hawkes in “The Fourth Pillar of Sustainability”, culture must be included in a cross-cutting model of triple sustainability (economic, environmental and social). We cannot talk about sustainable development without cultural development and we must assume a notion of culture that is much more linked to social responsibility and that, in addition to generating activities for consumption, have an impact on the agents involved. These impacts improve the quality of life and promote social, environmental and labor sustainability. Therefore, with culture as the backbone of the triple helix of sustainability. The arts programs we promote research on art, new technologies, and sustainable development.

Working from an ecological perspective on cultural and artistic projects links us to the reality of our territories. We connect with projects from the natural and the collective, generating new visions of the environment and expanding the fields of action of art. Adding the environmental dimension we put the focus on the common care of the territories, under the premise of betting on a sustainable environment, socially just and economically viable. Permaculture as a social and political phenomenon offers us a very broad view of ecology, because its basis reflects a real need in response, without moving away from those other aesthetic needs from which the new ways derive. to conceive art.

In 2021 they were in residence: Ariela Kader, Akyute Collective, Ferran Lega and Edu Ruiz.

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Art and community

Objectives

1) Increase cultural demand and access through a strategy of democratization and cultural democracy that facilitates the participation and transformation of recipients.

2) Promotion of participation in the sociocultural life of the neighborhood and to define the programming of the center.

3) Share, encourage creativity and learn together and horizontally

4) Promote co-creation and citizen culture as a means of proposing real, agile and more sustainable solutions to contemporary urban challenges.

Art i comunitat

At this point, new “extortions,” that is, distributed, informal, and open citizen institutions, arrive where traditional institutions do not. They thus become porous institutions that work in a network, places where to promote diverse interests in favor of common actions that benefit the society as a whole. We are committed to placing people at the center of innovation as the main agents of change and generators of proposals. Innovation applied in re-evaluating processes and methodologies, sharing knowledge and strengthening collective intelligences. That’s why we focus so much on building new product value chains based on the “Do it with others” or DIWO philosophy where co-creation and community empowerment are valued as the core of all projects. In this line, we believe that innovation lies precisely in sharing information and results, being transparent in processes and generating spaces that make us grow as people and as a society. Another recurring principle of the project is based on the idea that the group is smarter than the smarter members of the group. Contemporary culture sees this premise in many of its community relations processes. Acquire knowledge of the digital environment such as collaboration or co-creation and transfer it to the physical world without losing meaning, significance or utility.

Currently the main programs of this axis are:

Arquiniños: Architecture aimed at children between 7 and 11 years old, is taught for two groups of 12 students free of charge. This program runs from October to June on a weekly basis. Participants learn to analyze the territory, think collectively and prototype solutions or living spaces.

Hip-Hop in community: A program aimed at teenagers and young people that offers free workshops on rap, music production, breakdance and graffiti. This program also holds a quarterly Hip-Hop event with music, breakdance, roundtables and graffiti.

Care for the environment

Objectives

1) Fostering co-responsibility in the care of public spaces and green areas in the neighborhood.

2) Promote a model of co-management between public administration and civil society where we find bridges of collaboration to establish new models of resource management.

3) Promote recycling and the prevention of waste generation.

4) Promote biodiversity and environmental education through open processes and support.

We transform not only the spaces we inhabit but how we inhabit them, how we relate to the environment and the rest of the community and learn to live together and be co-responsible for the sustainability (social, economic and environmental) of our cities. The impact here transcends physical frameworks and enters into dimensions of emotional well-being, health, and social cohesion. Transforming our environment through art and creativity, not as recipients but as active agents of change with the ability to analyze, value and directly affect our well-being and that of others.

Self-construction

The project enjoys a volunteer base in the weekly “Bricobarrio” program. This program seeks to train and empower participants in the care and maintenance of the environment, as well as designing improvements and executing designs with sustainable and recycled materials. This program also includes people who take advantage of restorative criminal measures in the form of community work.

Care for the environment

We encourage joint management between the administration, local agents and the surrounding area, designing and maintaining the green areas of the facility in good condition. We are expanding the productive green areas in the city and we are designing a park open to all citizens through permaculture.