URBANBATfest
Basic information
Project Title
Full project title
Category
Project Description
URBANBATfest is a festival in the form of a citizen laboratory. A space for research and co-creation between different actors involved in the urban transformation (officials from administration, the private sector, citizen associations, universities…)
Through our work (participatory processes, cultural production…) we promote social innovation and citizen creativity with the aim of enhancing a participatory culture which contributes to the care and improvement of the enviro
Project Region
EU Programme or fund
Description of the project
Summary
URBANBATfest is a festival which is a laboratory, a research process on urban transformations. An environment of learning, experimentation and collective creation in which people from different areas of knowledge and varying degrees of specialization come together to develop projects or resolve urban challenges together.
The festival takes place every year in Bilbao. In the ten editions held to date, we have addressed themes including the privatization of public space, the ecological and resilient proposals of territories in transition, the collaborative production of public space, the impact of major events on town planning, spaces designed for care, etc.
Each edition of URBANBATfest focuses on research into a contemporary urban phenomenon.
It does so through a programme expanded over time and in format, crossing cultural and
artistic practices, architecture and urbanism, social sciences and experiences located on the
intersection between formal and informal, theory and practice, the established and the
emerging.
A methodology of working which starts with observation and actively listening to the urban phenomena affecting our immediate environment, in order to suggest alternatives and work on joint solutions which enable the design of sustainable cities on a human scale. The programme is organized around different activities which end in a festival, seeking to activate meeting spaces for the different stakeholders involved in the transformation of the city: public administration, social, cultural, university, citizen agents… The festival addresses the analysis of urban reality and its conflicts through a multidisciplinary programme in different formats which enrich debate and case studies, offering methodologies, references and tools for participation. This idea of open and collaborative innovation seeks a cultural change which affects certain attitudes and values in relation to what is public, or common and the way of constructing the city in a sustainable way.
Key objectives for sustainability
Cities are the spaces with the highest inhabitants rate in the world. Although they only take the 5% of the surface land of the planet, they need the 90% of its resources. The objective is to minimize the climate crisis and attend the necessities of designing more sustainable and participatory cities.
We believe that the development of sustainability can only be achieved by implicating local agents from different knowledge and experience in relation with the way we live/use/improve the city. Our objective is to raise awareness about the environmental problems through the festival and focusing on initiatives and methods that enable posible solutions. The festival has addressed topics regarding the green new deal, the economical and social crisis produced by the pandemic, cities and care, transit cities and communities…
This last one, for example, was the axis to compose the fifth edition of the festival.We wanted to approach to the transition territories or communities, projects that promote urban resilience with the goal of facing the issues derived from climate change to the oil peak and the economic sustainability. In this case we focused in the way cultural politics and cultural projects can develop and promote this type of sustainable urban development.
In short, develop citizen’s skills and creatitvity in projects that benefit the shaping of the city.
Key objectives for aesthetics and quality
Each year, the festival takes part as a key section of the Design Week of Bilbao (Biscay), and it plays an important role inside the design ecosystem. The structure and formats of the festival are carefully designed and constructed, by creating a unique identity with every edition. The design is also present in the formats of the activities, products, services and communication that compose the event.
The programme is consciously designed taking into account every aspect in terms of aesthetic, context and unity. For example, every year we plan an experimental participatory walk tour related with the topic of the festival. Not only the concept of the tour is meticulously designed, but also the products that are given away to the participants (last year were facemasks with a QR that connected to the whole festival’s programme).
Also, the dynamics that are implemented in the workshops and co-working laboratories which take place in each event are attentively designed, along with the tools and devices. As mentioned before, they create a unity with a high aesthetic value.
URBANBATfest promotes the emergence of new talents and creative practices which hybridize between research into urban development, cultural production and artistic representation. We work in collaboration with artists and graphic designers, to whom we give visibility.
The festival seeks new possibilities of social creativity and hidden innovation which challenge our stereotypes about art, architecture and design. Its activities and production processes transit through disciplines including: graphic design, visual arts, audiovisual, social art, architecture, city planning…
Key objectives for inclusion
When starting a new edition of the festival, we invite professionals from different fields (cultural agents, architects, sociologists, artists…) to identify and respond to urban challenges by using
tools and methodologies with a cultural and artistic base. Together with the urbanbat team, we organize a series of encounters in which we talk, share and propose ideas, settling the foundations to erect the festival.
The project includes all kind of experts in the design and development of the programme, inviting citizens in the debate about the city, in a horizontal way. We reinforce the idea that citizens are not merely users of the city, but also active agents. They take part in the design of activities and events, the selection of discussion topics, accessibility towards the contents and reflections…
The theoretical or expert area, often separated from the general public, is translated to a more local and casual environment, encouraging relations and dialogue between culture, society and territory. Using a more inclusive and informal language, cultural formats including concerts and exhibitions, attract a not specialized public. We provide access to both format and content level.
Results in relation to category
URBANBATfest functions as a multi-agent space, in order to understand the increasing complexity involved in the management of the city. Every year, it becomes a space for debate and reflection which offers knowledge, methodologies, references and tools to address some of the contemporary urban challenges in a collaborative manner.
This project links cultural production with social management, numerous other areas of human action able to generate long-term transformation processes. URBANBATfest is based on the paradigms of:
Cultural mediation
We use mediation tools to bring about ideas able to improve the city, helping interested parties to meet in different ways which address the stereotypes of the creative disciplines. This is a space for learning and production in which all the parties learn from each
other to admit levels of increasing complexity in the management of the city.
Expanded culture
That which reinterprets the social role of culture as a basic ingredient in any process, including territorial governance and management models.
Relational culture
Referred to the production of cultural ecologies, experimental communities,
open processes and common worlds. At URBANBAT the citizen goes from being a silent unknown to an active collaborator.
Collective intelligence
We seek collaboration between areas, disciplines and knowledge and individuals: art, architecture, town planning, design, sociology, communication... scientific and folkloric knowledge, etc.
How Citizens benefit
We contact a series of professionals with whom collaboratively set the topic of the festival; by involving them in the development of the programme and activities, we help in the democratization of knowledge.
Collaborative design on a human scale.
The festival opens an annual space in which it places the general public in the centre of urban design. A public who, on the majority of occasions, are left outside the solutions for urban design and planning, ignoring the fact that a significant part of the creation of value accompanying the social, cultural and economic development of our cities comes from the innovative initiatives of members of the public themselves. On this basis, the festival opens spaces for rapprochement and trust, the exchange of knowledge and collaborative work between the general public and the different stakeholders involved in the management of the city.
We encourage formats of participation that lead to community building through cultural and artistic practices. Besides, we provide tools for the people to create sharing spaces for reflexion, empathy and mutual understanding.
Urban pedagogy.
Creation of a learning environment open to all the public, where the transformation of the city, its characteristics, dynamics, etc. are addressed in a multidisciplinary manner from different viewpoints. In this way, the festival helps the public to better understand the characteristics of the environment; they are able to identify with the urban space they occupy, developing a shared sense of their ownership towards it and including it in their affective schemes.
Furthermore, we develop a series of tools, guides and reflections that include the publication of a book with all the texts and images of the proposals and activities in the festival, recorded conferences and radio-shows, and a number of brief videos (urban capsules) regarding the theme of the festival. All of them are accesible, open and free.
Innovative character
Nowadays, a significant part of the creation of value which comes with the social, cultural, and sustainable development of our cities arises from innovative initiatives from the citizens themselves. We understand citizen innovation as the active participation of individuals in processes of experimentation, exchange and creativity, with the aim of collectively imagining and designing cities which are better adapted to the human scale.
URBANBATfest is committed to exploring new spaces for the development of a more creative society. We believe that collective creativity can be redirected and transformed into innovation able to be transferred to the improvement and care of the public space.
Open innovation
We create spaces for helping the public sector and private initiatives to cooperate in processes for improving the urban environment.
An interdisciplinary approach
Citizen innovation works with collaborative and inclusive approaches: those concerned actively work with experts from a number of disciplines on the production of solutions. It can be understood as the fusion of many disciplines; including the design of services, urban planning and design, architecture, graphic design, social design, relational design, geography, art… Whereas conventional innovation uses expert-based diagnostic methods for the comprehension of the problems addressed, citizen innovation develops mechanisms for listening based on immersion and the active participation of different parties.
Intersections between areas of knowledge
URBANBATfest is a point of intersection between individuals from academia (universities, research teams...), from institutions (local administrations) and from research, and independent cultural production which favours exchange, synergies, collaborative dynamics; facilitating tools and methodologies for improving and simplifying the collective work in the production of knowledge about the city in relation to the theme of each edition.
