Community Learning Laboratory (LAC)
The Community Learning Laboratory (LAC) is a space for experimentation dedicated to the creation and transmission of learning based on reciprocity. The proposal is based on the capacity and potential of personal and community knowledge in what we define as a framework for exchange, empowerment and creation. The LAC’s activity is structured as an experiential and hands-on knowledge process, based on the territory and on community research, and taking as routes itineraries that structure their reading and writing. The laboratory’s action is rolled out from the La Virreina Image Centre and crosses through different autonomous initiatives, in each case adopting specific spheres of development and evolution.
The running of the laboratory and of all its associated dynamics is based on four ethic principles in order to ensure its proper progress and maintenance: responsibility, respect, inter-relation and reciprocity.
Coordination: Sitesize (Elvira Pujol Masip and Joan Vila Puig)
PRESENTATION
We present the Community Learning Laboratory (LAC) as an initiative launching a process of knowledge exchange and of creation of communities of learning. The intention is to endow the institution and the city with a space for hosting and amplifying experiences around art, pedagogy and the metropolis, at the service of culture, of creators and of the communities forming part of the project.
Furthermore, the laboratory is setting up various tools and resources for public engagement. Within the LAC it is planned that part of the activity will be dedicated to creating communities of learning. Under an incubator format, it will host groups and practices in need of a space and a work context. One of the tools to be highlighted is the proposed Barcelona Oracle, an online database to host spoken records of knowledge, hands-on learning and experiences linked to the laboratory.
Sitesize (Elvira Pujol Masip and Joan Vila Puig)
We are a platform dedicated to creation and research into the contemporary metropolis. Since 2002 we have been developing artistic projects and researching autonomous forms of cultural production and community learning.
As part of our long experience, we would highlight the following projects: the touring exhibition ¡Cataluña termina aquí! ¡Aquí empieza Murcia! (2011-14), on urban spaces and popular learning; MAD#sub anotaciones desde el sub-suburbio de Madrid (2010-11), a visual essay about the metropolitan periphery south of Madrid; Valparaíso Aula Permanente (2010), creation of a learning community around the city of Valparaíso (Chile); the exhibition La comunitat inconfessable (2009), for the Catalan pavilion of the 59th Biennale de Venezia Contemporary Art exhibition; and the project SIT Manresa, Servei d’Interpretació Territorial (2005-08), a public audit on the transformation of the city of Manresa. We are currently developing Aprendizaje autónomo, involving research into the forms of creation and re-appropriation of life that refer to libertarian culture and pedagogy. This research has earned a research residency at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía.
