(re)vuelta al patio: mediation programme and residencies

March to April 2021
Madrid, Condeduque

(re)turn to the patio is a mediation program that we activate with Conde Duque cultural center, bringing in a more diverse and stable community and incorporating a non-adult-centric perspective. With this, we promote spaces where children are not understood as outsiders, but as part of an active community.

After an extensive mapping of the Chamberí and Centro districts of Madrid, the first edition of (re)turn to the patio begins with two research/action residencies with the neighborhood, led by artists Paula Valero and Cristina Fraser.

(re)vuelta in the street:
Paula Valero – Manifiesta

Paula Valero's project is structured on the basis of an action from which children involved find a place to be heard, that projects their position as political subjects from today to the future.

Given the lack of spaces for enunciation of their voices and ideas, the artist will promote a series of performative actions where children can explore ways of autorepresentation and radical imagination.

Starting from a first stage of reflection, mediation and debate on cultural participation, the future, ecology and equality, the working group meets around committees that culminate in a constituent assembly. Finally, the objective is to come to a common rules from wich develop a program of action. The experience closes with a moment of shared presence that, from the imaginary of a parade, a sit-in, a concentration..., displaces the format of its original sense by playing and exploring new ways of taking the street as a space of expression. All with the required security measurements.

The project invites (especially in these times of social distancing) to the exploration of new ways of recovering the presence in the public space. All this by promoting a "circulation of joy" (Hakim Bey/ TAZ).

asamblea constitutuyente ecofeminista: 24 y 25 de abril
taller de pancartas: 28 de abril
manifiesta: viernes 30 de abril

Elige en qué modo participar (presencial o remoto) a través de este FORMUALRIO DE PARTICIPACIÓN

mediation phase: from March 7 to March 15

constituent assembly: April 24th & 25th
banner/sign's workshop: April 28th
Manifiesta: Friday, April 30

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(re)return in hidden spaces of Conde Duque:
Cristina Fraser – Tactics of sabotage, children making culture

REGISTRATION FORM (open until March 23th)

The transversal purpose of the proposal is a greater democratization of spaces, especially those that haven't a regular use in the institution, the ones that seem untouchable. By inhabiting them by, for and with children, we will desacralize these places, demonstrating how children (commonly related with chaos in a prejudiced way) can respectfully inhabit and assign new uses of the space, building new ideas and ways of relating to it. The work lies in facilitating children's conquest of these spaces: negotiation, flexibility and rapprochement are intrinsic to the research that will be developed by promoting real accessibility and agency from children in the frame of a cultural institution.

Through a workshop, we will define with participants how to inhabit other CD spaces. We will also transform this ephemeral experience into a playful experience while we expand the notion of cultural policies.

Cristina Fraser's proposal invites to generate a process of reflection and mediation that decentralizes Conde Duque towards a vision / plurality of visions articulated from childhood. To this end, this action will be designed and planned, generating a scenario and a methodology to co-create these possibilities with a community of families (AMPAs of nearby schools) with the protagonism of children, but this action will in turn be the trigger for other processes.

mediation phase: from March 26 to March 31
workshop: March, 26th and 27th
playing action: Saturday, April 10th
registration form https://forms.gle/FYmBhvuGCkBmLtfB8

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Paula Valero (1976) lives in Paris. She is a multidisciplinary artist with a practice that extends from personal proposals with diverse media (drawing, videos, installations) to practices of directing actions and processual devices with communities, activists, performers, dancers, etc. She uses diverse methodologies such as affective psychogeographies, biotopographies, and experimental ethnographies, to put, among other subjects, life on stage.

Cristina Fraser (1986) works at the intersection between art and education. In the United Kingdom she participated in Adventure Playgrounds, playful spaces that encourage self-directed play. This work has influenced her practice as an artist. Her projects revolve around public space and people's desire or access to manipulate and determine their own environment. She has been part until last year of the cooperative La Fundició and developed within it projects aimed at children as political subjects.

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The residencies of (re)turn to the patio are part of the European project Cultural Creative Spaces and Cities which, over two and a half years, has brought together citizens, public administration and the cultural sector to co-create public cultural policies. Since hablarenarte, the focus of these cultural policies has been on children. In collaboration with local partners Medialab Prado, Intermediae Madrid and the Subdirección de Innovación del Ayuntamiento de Madrid, tools have been explored to sharpen listening to children and strengthen the dialogue between cultural institutions and the children's community. International collaborators of the project are the following institutions: Trans Europe Halles (Sweden), European Cultural Foundation (Amsterdam), Peer2Peer Foundation (Netherlands and Greece), University of Antwerp - Prof. Pascal Gielen (Belgium). Together with the following independent organizations: City of Lund (Sweden), Northern Tzoumerka (Greece), Skåne Region (Sweden), Ambasada (Romania), CIKE (Slovakia), Kaapeli (Finland) and hablarenarte (Spain).