We Do What We See

A few days ago, our comrades at Transeuropa Amsterdam hosted their festival planning session with Placemakers.

It’s really good to involve other partners in creating the spaces that make people feel confident and creative in coming up with ideas for the festival. We are really grateful to @hubwestminster for letting us play in their Strategy Theatre and for our participants to be able to immerse themselves in the Changemakers Fest. Just as we we bigged up @hubams for letting us play in their Hub. It seems that Placemakers provided the creative sparks for our comrades in Amsterdam to come up with some really great ideas too.

International PARK[ing] day – Stadionplein Amsterdam from Stichting Placemakers on Vimeo.

Who are Placemakers?

“Placemakers is a group of young architects, social designers, artists & sociologists who set up community projects with people on site in various locations…Through the process of co-creation, local groups work together with developers and municipalities during the development of their city or neighbourhood.” They embody the “militant optimism” that @davidbarrie coined and the people-centred processes of public space that @juliandobson, @spacemakers and @somewhereto are trying to foster.

“We delve into an area and come together to form new ideas for projects in social and physical. Young people feel more connected to this one place and this makes it safer, cleaner and more pleasant.”

People can form a visceral connection (@annemcx) with the places they feel at home in, but often they don’t feel a sense of ownership over these spaces, so when these become disused or gated, it doesn’t consciously affect them. But when you create the conditions for people to interact emotionally with place, it makes them feel curious about it and even responsible over its use.

AMSTEL CAMPUS PROJECT

“Youth of the HVA were at the Amstel Campus Festival to record their ideas for the new campus. The result of the “bewenswijzeren ‘on this day three colourful piles from top to bottom covered with arrows, enthusiastic students and empty paint pots. Place Makers showed them the opportunity to provide input for itself for the new campus Amstel. What facilities they want? What would they like to do after classes on campus? And how would she meet with their peers?”

Getting people to describe their dreams with their hands connects the journey into the subconscious for the utopian visions that are buried under the rubble of cynicism and despair – with the conscious feeling of touch between the paintbrush and the idea being created. @thinkactvote use a variety of formats to stimulate people’s wishes for a better future – through fashion, music and photography.

PROJECT ALMERE NORTH WOOD

“Residents involved in fleshing out a new neighbourhood…We then present ideas to fill the empty area to provide a temporary, co-creation with youth and youth organizations from different neighbourhoods”

We’ve described before how semiology can be used to trigger emotions in people’s minds and visualising as a technique to help people make sense of what they and their peers think of a particular issue or area.

I wonder what relationships Placemakers and Come to Your Senses would see between social context mapping and emotional mapping. Is it semantics or is there a conceptual difference in what they’re trying to represent about a neighbourhood?

PROJECT Westpoort

“Amsterdam has Westpoort Place Makers with the College Media launched a think tank that group on the question of what local businesses and students can do for each other. “

Involving students in general has always changed the way I think about the way I do things – you’re not only reaching an age-group whose brain cells are at their peak of potential – but you’re interacting them at a stage of their live where they’re discovering themselves and their relationship to society through learning (@univproject). Whether it’s been supporting university students to co-design prototypes on challenges which public services face or challenging young people at school or college to think of how they could connect their savviness around digital technology with the lived experience of older people on helping people help each other, you really get a boldness of thought and restlessness of desire.

Just one of the many relationships we’re trying to connect through the Transeuropa Network. If you’d like to see how you or your organisation could get involved in helping develop our Festival, take this survey or get in touch.