Co-design and community cultural dynamization. Conceptual, methodological and practical reflections from an experience from the periphery

Abstract

We analyze the potential to generate critical collaborative and pedagogical practices from Design, which contribute to processes of community artistic and cultural development in contexts of marginal, informal and peripheral urbanism with respect to production centers. We start from the experience of joint work since 2016 between a faculty of fine arts and a nearby self-construction neighborhood; Las Moraditas de Taco, in Santa Cruz de Tenerife. The evidence that "professors are fed up with the classrooms spaces and students lack more experiences in the streets" joins the neighborhood claim; "we live on a mountain but nobody sees us", to explore models of living labs for creation and service-learning, in the recovery and valorization of collective memory, intangible cultural heritage, sense of belonging, dignity and beautification of public space or the external projection of positive values.

Special attention is paid to designers’ emerging roles and competencies, such as facilitator, catalyst or mediator. We highlight the relevance of adopting methodological frameworks based on participatory action-research, thus reorienting the traditional, institutional and top-down culture project, towards  iterative process cultures of citizen innovation, from which to generate, stimulate and root transformations within the community and the territory.