ATHENS – 14 may 2024 – As the Future DiverCities project nears completion of its first stage (14 June 2024), here are some of the project’s results and updates. This presentation provides an overview with figures that highlight the current situation on the ground showcasing both the challenges and successes, as well as the struggles and attempts of this collective project.
The inaugural year (September 2022-December 2023) was incredibly fruitful. To delve deeper into the core of the project with concrete examples, the 13 partners involved have gathered information to quantify the activities, communication, and tools provided since the inception of the Future DiverCities project,
Webinars and podcasts
In 2023, Trajna and Innocamp PL,developed and presented the first cycle of webinars aimed at enhancing capacities for tackling temporary artistic uses, urban and territorial regeneration. The relevant knowledge is transferred to support local initiatives within the project, but it is also an open and free opportunity for a wider community of European practitioners, social innovation and cultural organisations, and active citizens.
Under the title “The School of Feral Grounds”, Trajna has proposed a series of regular webinars and podcasts on urban ecology that create a collaborative learning environment for exploring and engaging with untamed urban sites. The program is accessible online.
In their upcoming podcast, Trajna engages in an inspiring conversation with infrastructure activist Debra Solomon, discussing the need for new forms of just urban development and spatial practices that foster reciprocal relationships between humans and more-than-humans. The conversation explores speculative fabulation, imagining a future where every European city establishes a department for multispecies urbanism to tackle the interconnected challenges of climate change and democracy. This department would work across various European locations, demonstrating the conceptualisation and implementation of a multispecies-sensitive public administration in places like the Future DiverCities pilot sites: Kuopio, Liepāja, Marseille, Athens, and Londa.
The second cycle, facilitated by Innocamp PL, focuses on empowering changemakers through training and mentoring support, along with their stakeholders. Participants are invited to embark on a self-development journey to critically assess their resources for driving change in the context of city regeneration, as well as their role within the Future DiverCities pilots and other project phases.
This cycle includes presentations, masterclasses, portfolios, and curriculum materials accessible on the project website. During a recent webinar, Liepaja was highlighted as a case study for capacity building among changemakers, showcasing collaborative efforts among multiple stakeholders in abandoned spaces in the pilot site of Karosta, and sharing the participants’ valuable experiences.
Impact assessment
Assessing, evaluating, monitoring…In today’s world, it has become essential to consider final assessment from the early stages of project implementation. In the field of impact assessment, a team of researchers from the University of Savonia (Finland) has developed a comprehensive impact assessment protocol. This protocol is based on scientific research and field tests to ensure its adaptability and replicability in various contexts. It serves as a comprehensive framework for evaluating both past and potential future impacts of a project; whether they are positive or adverse. As a result, this exercise can be carried out at different stages of project implementation with the involvement of all stakeholders, including project managers, artists, and participating citizens. The protocol is available online for sharing results with the Future DiverCities partners.
Sensitive mapping
Beyond its core environmental focus, the project places a strong emphasis on public participation and citizen engagement in the co-design of artistic and cultural initiatives that contribute to the urban regeneration of a space.To achieve this ongoing activities in all pilot spaces involve the collaborative creation of sensitive maps with various local stakeholders, including residents, neighbors, NGOs, nonprofits, and local public authorities, forming what the project terms as local coalitions.The objectives of this initiative are diverse. One key goal is to gain insight into the emotional perspectives of users towards the space. Each vacant area holds a history of past, present, and potential future uses that are intertwined with the emotions people associate with it. By collecting this sensitive data, the project aims to envision future uses of the space that resonate with people’s emotion. By eliciting and documenting people’s emotions and investing time in the process, the project offers an innovative approach to engaging public participation and reshaping narratives about the space and its future uses.
This endeavor is facilitated by L’Atelier des Chercheurs, a group of researchers from France who have developed collaborative and open-source online tools for visual storytelling and presentations. They have customized their Do.Doc tool to incorporate geographical and sensitive mapping, enabling the creation of maps that go beyond the surface to convey the stories participants wish to share.The sensitive maps created by the project partner KONTEJNER in Vjesnik pilot area (Zagreb, Croatia) have been made available online.
About Future DiverCities
Future DiverCities is a four-year project funded by the European Commission (Creative Europe) and implemented by European organisations seeking to re-imagine culture-led regeneration of urban empty spaces in an ecological way.
The project will develop cultural approaches to enhance and preserve the ecological value of unused vacant spaces in 8 European Cities: Berlin, Zagreb, Liepaja, Kuopio, Marseille, Florence, Timişoara and Athens.
The 13 partners involved are: Public Art Lab (Berlin), KONTEJNER, bureau of contemporary arts praxis (Zagreb), The Department of Culture (Liepaja), The University of Savonia and ANTI-Contemporary Art Festival (Kuopio), La Friche La Belle de Mai and Chroniques (Marseille), LAMA Impresa Sociale (Florence), PLAI (Timişoara) and BIOS-Exploring Urban Culture and The European Creative Hubs Network (Athens), INNOCAMP PL (Poland), and Trajna (Ljubljana).
All the content of the first study modules is available on the Resources section of the project website.
