3. Methodological meetings and open workshops

Methodology exchanges and debates on different approaches to intangible cultural heritage seen from informal cities ontologies have been an essential part of the project. Opening spaces to specifically facilitate those conversations among partners, collaborators and people interested in going deeper into issues surrounding the project’s main ideas has been addressed by activating three open workshops and methodological meetings organised in each context.
Memory is a space of conflict, crossed by controversies around the events of the past and how they explain our present day; that is, memory is a complex and multidimensional territory. However, very often we find that conservation policy and the cultural heritage sector have tended to cancel conflict by imposing a unique and indisputable memory that fuses the controversies around it and summons a neutrality that avoids the debate and the agonistic contrast between different memories. So, it can be said that for the most part, strategies and policies of patrimonial heritage, the paradigm of custodialism and the traditional historical devices -with the monument as its clearest expression- are usually aligned with this «pacifying» impulse.
In this sense, the Open workshops have the objective of, on one hand, connecting culture heritage sector and contemporary culture agents for innovation; and on the other, permeate the community based strategy into both contemporary culture sector and heritage sector.

HOSPITALET:

The first methodological meeting took place in Hospitalet in the framework of a series of conferences, screenings and presentations exploring the challenges of representation of subalternized communities. It was an opportunity to discuss and reflect on previous experiences of representation of counter-hegemonic ways of living and organising in the urban experience: from the informal city to the neighbourhood movements.

CASTRO DAIRE – LISBON:

A second methodological meeting was held in Castro Daire and Lisbon combining open community sessions and internal exchange workshops about archiving practices. As the archive is one of the core questions each partner is dealing with in their contexts, this meeting provided the framework for exchange and debate.

CLUJ – NAPOCA:

The third methodological meeting in Cluj-Napoca focused on the different strategies that can be put into practice with vulnerable communities in order to generate agency through cultural and artistic interventions. It was also the opportunity to share each partner’s practice and working processes.