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DERIVAS

ARCHITECTURE, CITIZENSHIP & LEARNING
 

EXERCISES OF DERIVAS / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / /

QUINTA NORMAL, BOROUGH OF SANTIAGO
28/09/2016
ACTIVITY

What happens when walking through the city is perceived differently?

Derivas, literally 'drifting', is a walk through the neighbourhood of children participating from the OPD (Office of Children's Rights) of Quinta Normal. In this territory the young people were given the chance to voice their opinions, deciding what they liked and disliked: Nature, Green Spaces, Graffiti, Litter and even Political Campaign Posters! Using stickers with emotive faces, they applied their opinion directly onto elements of the cityscape and started a dialogue using creative media to investigate their personal understanding of their local environment.

OUR POINT OF VIEW

Exercises of Derivas, is a workshop where children are given the opportunity to connect with their own urban area. It is a project developed by Aldea to encourage young people to experience, think and critically observe the city using a range of media. From the context of the majority of children having only the route from home to school as their only exposure to their own neighbourhood, there is a unique opportunity for them to experience new and critical points of view about their local urban spaces.

 

Inspired by the Situationists and the idea of the Flâneur, to drift and experiment in their local (yet less travelled) urban territories, the workshop serves as a strategy to re-learn the qualities and realities of their local spaces. It is an invitation to critically walk through their built environment to empower proactive citizens to become involved in their urban conversation. It is not just how to look at things in new ways, but also to develop new skills; to record, connect and analyse the qualities of the city, in order to form a voice with which ideas, thoughts and opinions can be communicated with the community.

Young people starting the deriva from Casona Dubois
OPINIONS OF THE CHILDREN

"Missing Facebook phrases" [for the happy/sad face stickers]

"They believe that people are going to put this in a frame at home?!"

[with reference to the political campaign flyers]

 

"Who named these streets? They always they have names like "Father"...."

"I'm judging the perfect places, like the park"

 

"Do I have to pay?"

[to enter the public Renato Poblete Park]

 

"This is all dead, cement, and nothing green, all dead"

[below the flyover roadway]

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