Abstract

COSTA, Pedro  and  LOPES, Ricardo. On both sides of the mirror: dialogues with a cultural quarter through urban intervention. Etnográfica [online]. 2018, vol.22, n.2, pp.395-425. ISSN 0873-6561.  https://doi.org/10.4000/etnografica.5572.

Artistic interventions in cultural quarters can be a good way to understand the multiple layers of uses, coding and segregation that affect these urban spaces and that contribute to their everyday vitality. Similarly, they enable us to complement and to test in practice many of the results obtained by more “conventional” research processes used in the study of these territories, allowing for a dialogue at different levels with local communities, and shifting the focus of the conceptual and analytical tools from the researcher to the own subject of study. The authors present a set of three urban interventions that they have developed in Bairro Alto, in Lisbon, during three consecutive years, in conjunction with a program of research on creative dynamics in cultural quarters of several cities. This program allowed them to develop new heuristics for their research and to further reflection on the potential of artistic intervention for the relationship with the community and knowledge of the territory. These experiences explored participatory approaches based on different artistic disciplines, enabling the testing of a set of ideas relating to the logics of space appropriation of, to the dynamics of liminality and conflict, and to the capability of urban revitalization.

Keywords : participatory approaches; creative milieus; informality; cultural quarters; public space; artistic interventions.

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