L’herència (‘The Inheritance’) arises from the proposal of Oriol Fontdevila and the Museu Comarcal de Manresa to participate in the Espai Memòries (Manresa segle XX) program. A new museum space that aims to combine historical research, artistic experience, and its dissemination to the public; and for its first season of operation, it proposes a review of the history of pedagogies focused on the periods of the 2nd Republic, the Civil War, and the early Franco regime as the theme of its programming, with a special emphasis on the treatment of chapters of local history.
Back to top
FOUNDATION (BRIEF REFLECTION ON HISTORICAL MEMORY AND CULTURAL HERITAGE)::
L’herència starts from a fundamental premise: memory (its omission, concealment, recovery, or exaltation) actively participates in the construction of the present: the way we formulate or represent the past shapes our understanding and perspective of the present. Hence, individuals and institutions take memory as a battlefield where they fight to fix what is or is not relevant from the past, what is or is not part of History, and therefore, to control what representations are given of the past, what is represented -and how it is represented- and what is not.
Strictly speaking, a cultural and political legacy is not something that can be inherited, but must be earned with great effort, in struggle with other individuals and institutions who are interested in knowing other parts of history and hiding those that are contrary to their interests.
Often the past is invoked in order to interpret the present, this invocation has less to do with disagreement about what happened, what were really the facts of the past, but with disagreement about the way these facts survive in the present.
In short, we can say that the past and the present mutually inform each other.
From LaFundició we propose that this reflection on pedagogies in the 20th century serve to put into practice educational models “inherited” from the progressive pedagogies of the beginning of the 20th century, different from those we usually find in most classrooms today. Knowledge about the pedagogical forms of the past, and the struggle to preserve some and extinguish the memory of others, should help to understand how current pedagogical models have become established as “natural”: their spaces and rituals, their methodologies… and, on the other hand, allow us to imagine and experiment with new models.
Back to top
WHAT IS L’HERÈNCIA::
L’herència is articulated through collective creation with a group of students from IES Guillem Catà (Manresa) of a “serial” in the television style, which will narrate the struggles to conserve or destroy the memory and practice of libertarian pedagogies of the early twentieth century, portraying the characters and institutions that have intervened and intervene, as well as their motivations and the situations that illustrate this struggle more clearly.
It is proposed that the series represent, through historical facts and characters, what were the pedagogical innovations introduced in the surroundings and during the 2nd Republic, what was their reason for being in the political context of the time, how the Franco regime censored libertarian pedagogies and replaced them with authoritarian and strongly disciplinary pedagogical models, and how throughout the 20th century (especially during the 60s and 70s) and up to today, efforts have been made to recover and update, with a greater or lesser degree of radicalism, some of the characteristic features of those pedagogies. It is therefore a question of relating the past of education and the educational models that, at present, are transited by the students participating in the project.
The production of this serial is articulated in four differentiated but interdependent work processes: 1. a historical research that supports the creation of the serial, 2. the production of the serial itself, 3. the creation of a pedagogical space, of production and dissemination of these processes open to the public and 4. the production of a documentary that records all these processes.
Likewise, all these processes are proposed as a collaborative and dialogical work between the students themselves, the LaFundició team and the teaching team of IES Guillem Catà (the teachers Joan Morros and Llorens Planes).
Back to top
WORK PROCESSES::
1. The research: The L’herencia serial articulates a collective research process on historical facts and on their representation: the preparation of the serial (the writing of the script, the selection and creation of the characters and the scenarios, the staging of the represented actions…) is in itself the research process on historical facts. It will be necessary to accompany the students in this research process, providing them with the necessary resources and means to carry it out.
2. The serial: The actual production of the serial. The number of chapters of this serial will vary depending on the dynamics and work rhythms of the group. In fact, we can also propose to the students the creation of a fictional serial, that is, not a complete serial with all its chapters and with a complete narrative development, but the creation of narrative fragments. This option would allow to record, for example, a pilot chapter of the series, previews of the series with several scenes that would be part of future chapters never made, a website of the series or even merchandising elements of the series, in a work that we could consider transmedia.
3 . The documentary: At the same time that a series of fictionalized historical events is represented, the students who participate in its creation will document with images their own learning process; thus, in the L’herencia serial will also appear the images that document the preparation of the fiction: the creation by the students of the argument, of the characters, the discussions between the students when making decisions about which is the most appropriate way to represent the facts, etc. As we said, we want to record the learning process of the participants in the project and the way in which this process recovers, in turn, some of the pedagogical proposals that are studied. The possibility remains open that the documentary images are related to the fictionalized material, establishing connections of meaning between the (historical and real) facts represented.
4. The pedagogical space, of production and dissemination of these processes open to the public: The work processes will be developed in the Espai Memòries (Manresa segle XX) of the Museu Comarcal de Manresa, which will be designed and modified by the students themselves. This space can be used as:
• Study and documentation space: for the preparation of the serial but also open to the public.
• Production space or set
• Space to organize parallel activities, such as film screenings, talks, parties or workshops related to the L’herència project, proposed by the students themselves, and open to the participation and contributions of other social and cultural agents of the city.
The Espai Memòries will be part of the museum, but it will be a dynamic space where knowledge will be presented as a continuous process of dialogue and open to the participation of different agents.
Back to top
Organized by: