Organisers: Bert Villa, Licia Soldavini, Patrick Hubmann
Collaborators: Amalia Buisson, Elisa Saturno
Guests: Alessandra Pomarico, Andrea Capaldi, Marie Vanderghote, Sofia Costa Pinto
Date: 29/10/22
Time: 16.00 – 17.30 CET
Location: Belgium, Germany, Italy, Portugal and the USA, online

How to join physically:
Belgium: BROEI (Ghent), meeting at 15h45 in the entrance hall
Portugal: Ensaios e Diálogos Associação, Antigo Presídio da Trafaria, Almada, meeting at 14h45

Constructlab’s portfolio is the sum of many projects which result from specific negotiations with a number of landscapes and their inhabitants, teams working at different scales, local regulations and restrictions, working conditions, materials, partners, resources … The combination of these elements give life to what we sometimes call a ‘territory’ and/or a ‘community’.
• These words are often spoken when describing critical spatial practices, but what are they really describing?
• What do they aim to define?
• What challenges and potentials do the use of these words hide?

We invited partners and friends, with whom we have been collaborating on several projects, to join a conversation around these questions. Broadcasting over several time-zones, we will reflect together on the spatial ancrage anchorage of our practice, the tools we collected along the years to engage with communities, our position as agents of transformation and the future of our practice.

We will be joined by:
Alessandra Pomarico, a sociologist living between Puglia and New York. She is a founder of Free Home University (Lecce, Italy), where she has been curating international and multidisciplinary artists’ residency programs. She works at the intersection of arts, pedagogy, social issues, micro-politics, and the poetic of relationship in community building.

Andrea Capaldi, a social entrepreneur, co-founder and director of Mare culturale urbano. This artistic production centre in the western suburbs of Milan aims to contribute to building a new model of territorial development of non-central city places; starting from a strong link with the local dimension, it wants to activate and develop processes of social inclusion, urban regeneration and cultural innovation.
Marie Vanderghote, architect, is coordinator of BROEI: a unique place for organisations, collectives and individuals working with the new generation to come and do, think and make for six months in Duivelsteen Ghent (BE).
Sofia Costa Pinto, a visual artist, designer and cultural programmer based in Lisbon. She is co-founder of the Ensaios e Diálogos Associação. Mainly active in the Region of Almada, this international, transdisciplinary collective experiments with alternative forms of intervention through culture, art and architecture.
The conversation retraces our common projects: Casa do Vapor, #costruirelimprovviso, Giardino Ammirato, The Devil Castle (BROEI)

Engaging with Territories is part of the digital symposium ‘On the network’, flanking the launch of the new Constructlab digital networking platform and is  supported by the Fond Soziokultur with funds from the Beauftragten der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien within the framework of NEUSTART KULTUR.