Occupy Baltan — Full Voids

During the social design residency Occupy Baltan (Eindhoven)
the participatory aspect of the project became the focus.

Full Voids was translated into a 4-steps workshop to create a collective visual portrait of a neighbourhood, through reflections and exercises aimed to:

Critically look at and analyse how the representation is being made. In other words, increase visual literacy;

Facilitate a process of collective decision making and dialogue to reach the final visual portrait of the ecosystem;

Connect the global political dimension with the local and personal one;

Have fun and engage in a think-through-making collective experience.

Outputs of three different workshop sessions.

The resulting visual outcome is supposed to give unconventional information about the space and its inhabitants (humans and non-humans), and through its diffusion new interactions are expected to be provoked. The practice that produces the outcome is more important than the outcome itself, especially when carried out in the form of a collective activity: it translates indeed in actual gatherings where relations can be created amongst the participants (that are supposed to live/regularly visit the same area).

WORKSHOP STRUCTURE

A collective analysis of the google maps image of the neighbourhood.
An individual one-hour exploration of the neighbourhood, with collection of visual notes afterwards assembled in a collage.
An excursus and a following discussion about the tools and the techniques needed to produce and disseminate the portrait.
An individual and collective reflection on the subjectivity of each perspective.

FINAL EXHIBITION

Photos by Barbara Medo