Paper co-authored with Filipa Ramalhete, Maria Assunção Gato and Sérgio Vicente, and presented at the IUAES 2013 Congress, which took place in Manchester on August 5–10, 2013.

Abstract

This paper intends to demonstrate the relevant contribution that anthropology can give to participative, multidisciplinary processes in public art, based on an experience of a public art project developed between July 2011 and July 2013 in Almada, Portugal. This project resulted in the installation of three sculptures in the newly constructed civic center (Centro Cívico de Caparica) in the parish of Caparica, a residential area marked by low incomes and a very diverse cultural composition. The center—part of a larger urban regeneration project—includes an urban park and municipal equipments (library, pool, associative center), and intends to be a place of leisure which will qualify the public space, promote inclusiveness and connect this neighborhood with the surrounding urban area.

The social and cultural diversity of this area led the municipality to propose the construction of an artwork inspired in the concept of cultural diversity. An interdisciplinary team comprising artists, anthropologists and educators developed an open methodology in order to promote a common space for different groups and allow the effective involvement of the population in the creative process. Based on this experience, we want to discuss, from the viewpoint of public art, the relevance and usefulness of the anthropological perspective to this type of methodologies, focusing especially on the interdisciplinary dialogue about the relational space of this community and it’s significations, and on it’s translation into feasible and effective processes of participation.

Introduction: The challenge of participation in public art

In the last decades, public participation has come to the fore as a fundamental instrument for assuring the success of sustainable urban interventions, from the small scale of local involvement to large participatory processes in city, region or nation-wide decision-making processes (Reeves, 2005), as attested by it’s pervasive presence in documents such as the 2001 World Charter on the Right to the City or the 2003 New Charter of Athens. The concept of public participation has also become important in contemporary public art and urban design practices (Águas, 2010). During the last decades, public space has become a common field of artistic intervention—from large scale sculptures to ephemeral street performances (Senie, 1992; Lacey, 1995). This increase is both linked to artistic ideals and practices of the 1960s and 70s which attempted to reconnect art and life and to leave the confined enclosure of the atelier, taking art to the street and to the people, and to the important role given to public art in contexts of urban development and regeneration.

The many, at times contradictory expectations of public art have, however, given rise to much debate on it’s nature, goals and effectiveness, also fueled by the many controversies surrounding public artworks, their funding and the limits of the artist’s freedom vis-a-vis the reactions of an audience involuntarily confronted with the work, often with large impact in the media.¹ In fact, public art is a very contested concept, implying as it does two highly ambiguous domains—art and the public—and not necessarily resulting from the simple intersection of both (Remesar, 2003). There is still no consensual definition of what it is, what it aims to do, or which criteria should be used for it’s evaluation. But the concept of public art does seem to imply a necessary rethinking of the relation between artist and society, and as such of long-held convictions about art itself as an essentially autonomous, individual and free activity (Leal, 2010). As Remesar (2003) puts it, the artist, when working in public space, cannot act as a demiurge sovereignly imposing his or her art on the public space, advocating instead a conception of public art as a means of citizen control over the aesthetics of their own environment.

In this paper, we will discuss a case of a participated public artwork as an example of the possibilities of strategies of public participation and multidisciplinary, collaborative approaches to public art, and the contributions anthropology may make in this field. Rather than defending a “natural marriage” between art and anthropology within this context, we see such collaboration, following Arnd and Schneider (2006; 2010), as one possibility amongst others which may make participation in public art a more productive and richer tool.

The Monument to Cultural Diversity in Monte de Caparica

The Monument to Cultural Diversity, inaugurated on April 27, 2013, in the newly constructed Fróis Park in the parish of Caparica, Almada (Portugal), resulted from a process which sought to implement a public artwork conceived in collaboration with the community residing in the area around the park.² The main objective of this proposal was to give the opportunity to the local community to directly participate in a process orientated towards the qualification of their living area and in the creation of an art object of which they would be the primary users.

Territory

The parish of Caparica is mainly composed of social housing complexes dating from the 1970s and 80s and some earlier occupations. It grew exponentially from the late 1970s on, with new inhabitants coming both from other areas of the larger Lisbon Metropolitan Area, former African colonies and other migrating communities. In fact, one of the most relevant social marks of this area is it’s ethnic, cultural, age and religious diversity. Presently, many difficulties of integration and social and urban cohesion are felt, with common characteristics such as low indicators of education and income, high unemployment, degradation of public spaces, a negative image and symptoms of social segregation, reinforced by characteristics of landscape and land use which isolate this area, limited by the Tagus river and heavy transport infrastructures (Costa, 2006; Câmara Municipal de Almada, 2008).

The urban regeneration plan Almada Poente sought to address these issues. One of it’s main interventions was the creation of an urban park and a Civic Center (Centro Cívico de Caparica) with a public library, public swimming pool and seat of a local cultural society, which aimed at the qualification of urban space, the provision of lacking public facilities and the creation of a municipal pole of attraction. The already mentioned socio-cultural diversity was the reason the municipality planned here a monument to cultural diversity.

Methodology

Due to the lack of similar experiences known in Portugal, an experimental process of participation was implemented, orientated by a multidisciplinary team of artists, social workers and anthropologists. It was sought to create a dynamical process able to include social and spatial representations of local residents within the very “monument”, both in it’s idealization and it’s construction. As such, the process was divided in two main stages: first, the collective construction of an anthropologically-inspired perspective on the territory, and secondly the collective creation of an artistic object.

To encourage this dynamic some ideas inspired in models promoting public participation within the context of territorial planning were used, especially the concept of workshops guided by multidisciplinary teams and based on challenges proposed to randomly composed groups with the goal of the realization of a concrete (real or hypothetical) action.³ Another important reference for our project were the studies and experiences developed in Barcelona, especially at the POLIS Research Center (CR-POLIS) of the University of Barcelona.⁴ The methodology used by CR-POLIS is based on the idea of providing citizens with the conceptual and projection tools and methods necessary to diagnose and critique their space of living, and develop proposals of urban design for the resolution of problems which directly affect them (Remesar, 2005; Ricart, 2009; Remesar et al., 2012).

Process

The Monument to Cultural Diversity was developed over a two-year period (July 2011–July 2013) in seven public workshops.⁵ Average attendance was about forty individuals, some of them returning to each workshop, others participating in just one or two. While participation was not statistically representative of Monte de Caparica residents, the average number proved to be adequate to the methodologies used. In fact, previous analysis of the territory and it’s communities had indicated that participation would be characterized less by the quantity of participants as by the diversity of their cultural references and their wealth of lived experiences, as the workshops proved to be correct.

The first three workshops⁶ were dedicated to the collective production and discussion of spatial perceptions, memories and discourses about the experience of sharing a common territory, which resulted in a consensual list of synthetic ideas about the community’s territory. This list included the community’s social diversity, the inter-cultural universe of the local school community, the large presence of young ages and the reflection of this presence and their actions (not always perceived as positive) in public spaces; the general environment of insecurity felt by the community and the lack of places of sharing and collective experiences; and the importance of exchanging values related to the area’s material heritage, spatial memories and socio-cultural diversity. Groups of participants were then challenged to transform these ideas into three keywords which, transformed in a narrative sequence, would translate their spatial and social reality.⁷

In the next workshops,⁸ these references were used as a starting point for the formal conception of a proposal for the monument. A worktable with different materials invited the participants to start developing models in groups. At the end, rather than simply alluding to or representing cultural diversity, the models began to proliferate into various places of “meeting” and “sharing” which aimed at reinforcing the already existing diversity. These models, each explained by a group representative, passed in the following sessions through a process of selection and simplification, ending at the end with three models, which had also gone through a formal purification and rethinking in terms of scale, materials and construction by participating sculptors and students.

In dialogue with the Almada Council, it was decided to execute the three models, which together would compose the “monument”. The interest and involvement of participants, the diversity of the presented proposals, and the interest of the Municipality can be credited for this multiplication. The last workshop consisted in the presentation and collective discussion of the three sculptures, to which the participants added a word (estamos [we are], fazemos [we do] and sentimos [we feel]) and colors (red, blue and yellow) as visual, symbolical and territorial enhancement. These were chosen in relation to the ideas each sculpture symbolizes and the active role participants desired the works would have. It was hoped they would not only be material and symbolic witnesses, but also places by themselves: a “meeting place” where dialogue between cultures could happen; a “place of reflexion” and of shared memories; and a “place of observation” of the surrounding reality, in order to actively enact and enhance existing cultural diversity.⁹

Final notes: Anthropological contributions to participated public art

The project developed in Monte de Caparica helps to acknowledge and value the social and cultural competences of a community, which it was able to manifest in it’s territory trough artistic practice. What came to the fore in this experience—besides the participants’ enthusiasm—is above all the richness which the narratives structured in earlier workshops, which had become a process of recovering spatial memories and reinforcing the group’s identity trough this memory, brought to the creative process.

The methodology used in this project highlights, besides other points, the productiveness of an interdisciplinary perspective in participated public art which does not limit itself to projection or design disciplines. The usefulness and perhaps even need of working, in this context, from empirical experience in the territory seems to require knowledge which escapes the scope of design or the arts. Disciplines such as anthropology, with it’s large experience in fieldwork and it’s attention to local specificities seems particularly apt to collaborate in such efforts, all the more as the vocabulary we have used (memory, identity, heritage, meaning) is partly common to both disciplines.

While disciplines as anthropology can, thus, contribute to public art with new perspectives and methodologies, anthropology can also learn from such close involvement with contemporary cultural production, as this project shows the analytical tools of anthropology can, in certain cases, also be used for modes of empowerment and for the actual transformation of a reality they are applied to. It should be noted that none of the team members worked within their discipline in a classical sense; one could say that neither the participating anthropologists did anthropological fieldwork, nor the sculptors made an art object. What in fact happened was the creation, by the team and community participants, of a collaborative place where specialists shared the tools of his or her discipline and participants the memories and experiences of their territory. This resulted in a collectively elaborated self-reflexion and self-representation later expressed in a sculptural object.

If the concept of public art is to be understood as we have proposed—i.e. as a means for citizens to take control over their aesthetic environment through actions which directly affect their living space—participative strategies and multidisciplinary approaches are important means for it’s realization, which have much to gain from the inclusion of disciplines attuned to the specificities of place, space, territory and identity—as is the case of anthropology.

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1. See, for discussions of issues raised by public art, Finkelpearl (2000) and the collections edited by Senie and Webster (1992) and Mitchell (1992), among others. ↩︎

2. The project resulted from a proposal made by the Center of Investigation and Studies in Fine Arts of the Faculty of Fine Arts of Lisbon to the Municipality of Almada, and was developed in partnership with the Center of Studies in Architecture, City and Territory of the Autonomous University of Lisbon, Casa da Cerca – Museum of Contemporary Art in Almada and the Monte de Caparica society Clube Recreativo União Raposense. ↩︎

3. Main references were the processes of participation developed by the Environmental Department of the New University of Lisbon (see www.civitas21.pt). Experience of some the team’s members in processes of public participation involving the strong local society culture of in Almada also was a decisive factor in opting for these kinds of methodologies. ↩︎

4. See www.ub.edu/escult/. ↩︎

5. See the project’s website, www.mm.fba.ul.pt/, for information on the workshops. The practice of these workshop is explained with more detail in Gato et al. (2013). ↩︎

6. Workshops realized at 22/10/2011, 23/11/2011 and 26/11/2011. ↩︎

7. These conclusions can be consulted (in Portuguese) at www.mm.fba.ul.pt. We translate here one fragment (the river referred to is the Tagus, a defining feature of the parish’ landscpae):

   The three keywords chosen by this group, in general agreement, were: ethnic diversity, rural memory and the river. The river is the unifying component of the rural memories [of Monte de Caparica] and of it’s ethnic diversity. The river, being an expression of water, should be considered the reason of the use of it’s fertile land, which made possible what we have labeled as rural memory, as well as the ethnic diversity which populates Almada, whose population seems to have com from far away, by sea. The river is simultaneously symbol of fertility and of migrating movements. This group understands that the Monument should by characterized essentially by the concept of the River, as if it were a tribute, emphasizing it [the river] in the landscape by the use of water and by it’s form, which should embrace Monte de Caparica. ↩︎

8. Workshops realized at 10/12/2011, 14/12/2011, 26/01/2012 and 2/6/2012. ↩︎

9. Currently work is being done on an evaluation project. ↩︎