The Inheritance starts from a fundamental premise: memory (its omission, concealment, recovery, or exaltation) actively participates in the construction of the present: the way in which 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 keeping hidden those that are contrary to their interests.
Often the past is invoked in order to interpret the present, this invocation has not so much to do with the disagreement about what happened, what were really the facts of the past, but with the disagreement about the way in which 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 that are “heirs” to 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.
The Inheritance is articulated through collective creation with a group of students from the 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 most clearly illustrate this struggle.
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 twentieth century (especially during the decades of 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, about 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 different but interdependent work processes:
• A historical search that supports the creation of the serial.
• The production of the serial itself.
• The creation of a pedagogical space, for production and dissemination of these processes open to the public.
• 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 the IES Guillem Catà (the teachers Joan Morros and Llorens Planes).
1. The investigation: The serial of L’herencia articulates a collective process of investigation on the 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 process of investigation on the historical facts. It will be necessary to accompany the students in this process of investigation, providing them with the necessary resources and means to carry it out.
2. The serial: The production of the serial itself. 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 facts are represented, the students who participate in its creation will document with images their own learning process; thus, in the serial of L’herencia 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 what 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, for 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:
• Space for study and documentation: 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.
