Not last weekend, but the one before, we attended the
Public Space and Community Cultural Development
conference coordinated by Artibarri as part of
Interferencia07
, which we announced on this blog at the time. Of all the presentations, the one by Aida Sánchez de Serdio (herself a member of Artibarri) caught my attention precisely because it problematized the very notion of ‘community,’ pointing out, among other things, how communities can be instrumentalized through the much-publicized proximity policies to build a false consensus that deactivates certain antagonisms and social struggles, while atomizing social demands by focusing them on the immediate context, the neighborhood and even the street, leaving aside political issues of a structural or more general nature. In this regard, I recall the intervention of Jaron Rowan during the conference Indisciplinars. The education of Art today at the Centre Cívic Sant Andreu when he pointed this out precisely with regard to the social policies of the Blair government, some years ago.
We do not have the exact text of Aida Sánchez de Serdio’s presentation, but we do have a link to this other text, presented during a symposium organized by CityArts in which, as a decalogue, she outlines the foundations of Artibarri’s artistic-community work and points out these and other dangers involved in some practices and approaches within community development work.
