The artists immerse themselves in the reality of the area where the intervention will occur, to share and reach consensus through participatory processes within the social fabric of the neighborhood. This process enables the artist to be an agent of change, stimulates dialogue on critical issues and builds bridges of connection and understanding.
Why participatory processes?
Parees presents models of functional and sustainable action to intervene on walls with what we call variously contextual art, artistic murals, collaborative art practices, new types of public art, or aesthetic dialogues, to positively influence coexistence in public space and boost the social and cultural life of our neighbourhoods.
In this type of artistic intervention, it is always important to highlight the value of the process, the collective work of inquiry and intervention in a neighbourhood, the active value of the communities, and, above all, the denial of the role of the artist as an isolated agent, and the work of art as a distant and incomprehensible object of social reality.
For what participatory processes?
As indicated by Paul Ardenne (“Un art contextuel: création artistique en milieu urbain, en situation, d’intervention, de participation”, Flammarion 2002), art must be contextualized within the framework of an action that generates a propositive change, wherever it occurs. A contextualization that achieves, through art, spaces for new social interactions where they did not exist before. Spaces converted into opportunities for expression, making the most of places that have mostly been ignored and forgotten. Thus, a new geography is created, a new social productivity of space, which redefines the role of that space and of the person, the neighbour, the citizen. In short, we take full advantage of a place, strengthening the intrinsic dimensions that it has and those that it has acquired through the artistic intervention.
How do the participatory processes work?
The artists are accompanied and guided by local mediators who facilitate the dynamics of meeting with people and significant entities of the municipality. Based on these encounters, the artist produces the design, working in situ, so that it is generated based on specific inputs for the project and thus flee from clichés or pre-established ideas.
Types of murals
We have cataloged the different types of murals into three categories: participatory, contextualized and community murals.
Participatory murals are those in which the artist immerses him- or herself in some layer of social reality or of the locality guided by the mediators and through participatory dynamics with key agents. From this process a design emerges in situ. In this way a direct relationship is established with the place and its inhabitants.
Contextualized murals refer to those created through a process occurring at a distance. Personalized dossiers are compiled for each artist which collect together information on the proposed theme and virtual meetings are organized with key agents. In this case an indirect relationship is established with the locality and its inhabitants.
Finally, community murals are those in which citizens are an active part of the creation of the mural, helping the artist to paint it. They are usually completed in a workshop format, and for this reason they represent a very direct and active way of linking the artist, society and the locality. Of particular interest is the collective authorship of such work, challenging the classic role of the artist as protagonist.
In the 2017 festival, three murals were made with such participatory processes; those of Agostino Iacurci, Anna Taratiel and Bitxo.
In the 2018 edition, the murals of Colectivo Licuado and Xav are participatory murals. Those of Andrea Ravo, Alfalfa, Kruella d’Enfer and Taquen are contextualized murals, and the community murals are those produced in the experimental workshops with graffiti and muralism for the elderly.
Raposu Roxu
The participatory processes of the interventions are designed and put into practice by Raposu Roxu (Laura Lara).
These processes invite us to break with linear thinking to let creative processes emerge. Creativity here is understood as a broad concept applied to our lives; as a capacity for resilience, for finding solutions, for awakening critical consciousness and divergent thinking.
Website: raposuroxu.org
