Citizen challenges, contrast between two urban communities around citizen culture

Abstract

This report collects the experience obtained in a university academic space associated with a doctoral program; the MediaLab Manizales laboratory is a collaborative work scenario that seeks, through design and creation tools, to generate mediations aimed at co-creations with communities that seek the laboratory because they believe that alternatives to problems in their territories can be proposed. In this regard, every year, since 2020, the laboratory has held a meeting called Knowledge Fair whose purpose seeks to surround itself with the experiences and knowledge that arise from society, academia, and communities in general, through activities such as forums, workshops, and knowledge tables. For its fourth version in 2023, La Feria wondered how to promote citizen culture without limiting the concept to a strategy or problem, since it was expected that with the call the categories would be established.  The call gave the possibility of working with two communities in the Palermo and Porvenir neighborhoods with students of an undergraduate program called Visual Design, as well as with graduates, teachers, and professionals from different careers. To develop the knowledge table, the call was opened for the reception of citizen challenges that, through interdisciplinary teams, could find a route of action to act in the proposed communities. Five challenges were received, two were selected: a work with the Environmental Committee of the Palermo neighborhood in Manizales and a work with the Porvenir neighborhood in Manizales. The article then addresses the investigation of the problems experienced by the communities of two neighborhoods or localities of the city of Manizales distant from each other in various aspects, it was intended to build with the communities the evidence of the problems and in the company of several actors elaborate the proposals for solutions. The methodology of the exercise consisted of an approach of the so-called immersive participatory design, of empirical data collection and collaborative work applying workshops, conversations, to generate solutions applicable by the communities. The project yielded several lessons in relation to working with communities that are part of what is reported in this article.