BESTROM has joined today, 1st February, the online meeting convened by HERA PUBLIC SPACES Joint Progamme to prepare the final HERA Conference to be held in Wroclaw (Poland) in September.
All the participating RLs have contributed ideas about public spaces, linked to their respective research projects, which can become scenarios for the activities of this Final Conference, which aims to navigate and inhabit the city with multiple initiatives.Theatres, spas, cafés, hospitals, festivals... are public spaces in which the research projects have been working and can contribute ideas.
In addition to these types of activities linked to the projects in a very specific way, there was also discussion of the cross-cutting themes that should be the focus of the participants' reflections at the Conference.BESTROM supports the proposal to focus on the COVID crisis of public spaces, which has transformed and threatened our very idea of public space.
We believe that it is not just a matter of celebrating with festive events the existence of places of cultural meeting and exchange in which we recognise ourselves as Europeans -and as human beings-. It is also about critically reflecting on the transformations and even threats facing these spaces that make up our shared culture: what collateral damage results from the virtuality that has imposed itself on meetings over the last two years, who has privileged access to these new forums, who is gaining power of public outreach, who is being harmed and which cultural producers speak from difficult positions that the pandemic has aggravated?
Only if we researchers ask ourselves about our own position in the new-old power equation, in relation to our subjects of study, can we really contribute to the goal of enhancing both diversity and cultural integration that the HERA Public Spaces Call ambitiously set out to achieve.