Open Paper: Cultural Mediation for Social Change in Pandemic Times

16.8 MB·English

by  ZEMOS98

CULTURAL
MEDIATION
FOR SOCIAL
CHANGE
IN PANDEMIC
TIMES

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WHO
IS THIS
OPEN PAPER
FOR?
The Open Paper is intended as a practical tool for:
CULTURAL MEDIATORS OR ORGANISATIONS that
have been faced with tasks involving cultural me-
diation between various kinds of agents holding
different positions within the fabric of society. Whe-
ther you’re a self-employed mediator whose expe-
rience is limited to cultural mediation in museums
and you’d like to broaden your understanding of
what it means to mediate, or whether you work in
an organisation that is more of a social connector
between different agents (civil society, public and
private institutions), this document will help you to
reflect on your practice.
PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS interested in better unders-
tanding what’s involved in the kind of mediation
work that is not exclusively confined to museums
or similar institutions, but that instead provides su-
pport, facilitation, recoding, and sparks negotiation
and dialogue between different types of agents
who have common interests and who wish to work
collaboratively on a joint project.
PRIVATE FOUNDATIONS that wish to switch from
a results-oriented project model and wish to trans-
form their own model to enable long-term proces-
ses designed around cultural and social mediation,
while also trying to understand the nature and im-
plications of this work.
Use it, remix and have fun!
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ABSTRACT:
WHAT
WILL YOU
FIND HERE?
This Open Paper aims to broaden the notion of
what is known as “cultural mediation”. Literature
written about this practice tends to be associated
with the support work carried out by professionals
specialised in contemporary cultural practices or
art history in museums or exhibition spaces as a
way of intervening in the relationship between the
public and the works of art on display. In this Open
Paper the concept of “cultural mediation” is expan-
ded by studying ZEMOS98’s own practices using
conversations that emerged during the “Laboratory
of Cultural Mediation in Pandemic Times’’, an event
financed by the City of Seville Institute of Art and
Culture.
The laboratory was divided into four sessions:
THE FIRST, with the participation of María Farras
(CCCB: Barcelona Centre of Contemporary Culture)
and Tere Badía (Secretary General of Culture Action
Europe).
THE SECOND, with the participation of Jaz Choi
(RMIT University) and Adam Horowitz (Artist and
mediator).
THE THIRD, with the participation of José Luis de
Vicente (Curator and cultural researcher, Sonar+D)
and María Yáñez (Media researcher and head of
Vinte).
THE FOURTH, with the participation of Marta Malo
(Translator and activist researcher) and Fran MM
Cabeza de Vaca (Educational programming at Mu-
seo Reina Sofía, music professor on leave).
This paper also includes an article that pulls toge-
ther insights from these four sessions and tries to
summarise at least 6 reflections or notes that help
expand the idea of what “cultural mediation” is.
Keep in mind that this Open Paper is not designed
to be a purely academic tool. We want it to be of
practical use. Feel free to use it, modify it and remix
it as you see fit.
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ZEMOS98
ZEMOS98 mediates between institutions, collecti-
ves, social organisations and other actors with the
aim of creating intersectional spaces for political
dialogue. It does this by developing participatory
processes, caring for the commons, working to
hack dominant narratives and developing counter-
narratives through media.
THANKS
We owe many thanks to a large number of people
for their ideas and resources, which have provided
us with so much guidance in writing this Open Pa-
per. We are also grateful to the people who partici-
pated in the Laboratory of Cultural Mediation who-
se conversations resulted in this document: María
Farras, Tere Badía, Jaz Choi, Adam Horowitz, José
Luis de Vicente, María Yáñez, Marta Malo and Fran
MM Cabeza de Vaca.
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Seville Activists Meeting, 2016 - Gema Valencia
SIX
QUESTIONS
ABOUT CULTURAL
MEDIATION
FOR SOCIAL
CHANGE
IN PANDEMIC
TIMES
“Navigating a communal geography differs from Obviously nobody can predict whether or not two
reading a text, purchasing a commodity, or from strangers will be able to connect. There are times
the self-consciousness of social media. You navi- when even the most on-point facilitations or most
gate a material place in the time of your body, ra- fine-tuned algorithms cannot create a connection
ther than emitting dispatches into a dematerialized between two individuals. Sometimes, even among
zone of no context. You are public, but not displa- those who seem to be like-minded, it’s not so easy
yed, surveilled, and archived. You relate to others to attain the kind of coveted connection that, in
spontaneously, without any obligation to perform turn, creates new social spaces itself. There are ways
or expose yourself. Your self can stretch to its full to try, though. This attempt is what we call “cultural
social mobility, rather than indexing itself into the mediation” at ZEMOS98.
narrow confines of text. Ideology, politics, taste, and
social media – these fixities can be a Procrustean Sometimes it means a 3-day meeting where we ga-
bed that crams your whole self into a shrunken mo- ther 40 people together (any more detracts from
dality of positions and transactional messages, but the intimacy) and get to work with post-its, poster
most interesting interactions we have in life are not boards and markers. Other times it involves long
when we are ‘on’. Life happens when you are not conversations with moments of connection that
making declarations. Life happens when you are last for weeks but aim at getting people from diffe-
with other people.” rent professions to work together. And other times
Ken Chen it’s about negotiating between peers who form
a community of shared practices or interests but
This quote is from the book As radical, as mother, who have not been able to identify a shared path.
as salad, as shelter: What should art institutions do
now?, published by Paper Monument. For ZEMOS98, cultural mediation is an amalgam of
practices, tools and methodologies that involve fa-
INTRODUCTION cilitation, support and recoding. But mediation is
One of the things that we have done most at ZE- also the search for a common language. A langua-
MOS98 is to organise gatherings of people who ge that may be new and invented and that seeks
have never met before. Beyond just creating “ne- to inspire. A language that sometimes attempts to
tworking spaces” or enabling strangers to meet and revive lost words or rituals. A language that someti-
work on projects together, we can also proudly say mes resembles a patchwork quilt.
that we’ve helped create many new friendships.
The following is our attempt to hash out six
What happens is that when we talk about “care” post-pandemic questions that explore ways to ad-
and build “spaces of co-creation” using methodo- dress the challenges of cultural mediation we have
logies that confront and recognise power dynamics just defined.
but, at the same time, try to encourage imaginative
ways of working together, everything seems to be
wrapped in a shroud of mystery where it’s easy to
confuse this “love is in the air” kind of feeling with
the structured and planned out work at hand.
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HOW DO WE
“MEDIATE
FOR SOCIAL
CHANGE” IN
A DIGITAL
CONTEXT THAT
IS BECOMING
MORE AND MORE
PRIVATISED?
————
It’s no secret that the pandemic has sped up a pro- During the course of the pandemic, we have had
cess that has been happening for years: the conti- to reinvent how we communicate digitally a million
nuous privatisation of spaces and tools that early times, and in many cases it has involved needing
pioneers once thought of as a common digital spa- to pay for pro versions of tools that we used to use
ce. for free. Video conference systems, shared digital
whiteboards, content storage, etc. These tools have
During the early 2000s, a common attempt at suddenly become an absolute necessity, and much
thwarting any radical approach to the debate was: of the time they are storing very valuable content
“Free culture can be made with private software.” in private spaces owned by corporations whose va-
Now, however, it’s undeniable that RSS (the spirit of lues have nothing to do with the common good.
shared knowledge on blogs or wikis), P2P networks
and the idea of the internet as an open and decen- Tere Badía reflects on this issue as follows: “One
tralised space have given way to an internet where of the things that I think about and that I believe
paid subscriptions have become the norm, as have could turn into something big in terms of political
personal or collective brand advertisement and al- action – and even if it is an uphill battle, it could
gorithms that reward loyalty but often end up be- still be very liberating – is how we define public
ing toxic and harmful to the user. space in the digital sphere. If culture happens in
meeting places, and meeting places are common
Likewise, the tools that we use to communicate space, how do we create this space? How do we
with each other or store our knowledge generally create public space within the digital realm when
belong to mega-corporations that, little by little, everything digital is in completely privatised hands?
have been sinking their claws into the education This is something I can’t stop thinking about lately.
sector, offering “integral solutions” for managing If we depend on big corporations – Apple, Google,
knowledge generated in these contexts. The solu- Facebook, etc. – and they are the ones who decide
tions, however, only complete a process that Noam what can and cannot be done, we’re just giving up
Chomsky already warned us about in 1998 when our public space.”
he said that if we do nothing, internet and cable will
be monopolised within ten or fifteen years by en- Obviously, this is an issue full of nuances that could
trepreneurial mega-corporations…that people don’t easily lead to very complex debates. We already
recognise that they have in their hands the possibi- know that the problem is not the technology itself;
lity of owning these technological instruments ins- technology has actually allowed us to do things like
tead of just leaving them to huge companies and generate more active participation. For example,
that for them to realise this, we need coordination digital events over the past year have enabled us
between groups that oppose this monopolisation, to involve people who, due to borders or because
using technology with creativity, intelligence and of physical inaccessibility, would have had much
initiative to promote, for example, education. more difficulty participating in in-person activities.
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Tere Badía adds another advantage – questioning
the dictatorship of the office as a space of shared
work: “Screen presence also has its advantages, be-
cause it has a very positive aspect that, depending
on how you approach it, also allows you to esca-
pe the omnipresence or dictatorial dynamics of an
office. This is a very good thing, but the problem is,
how do you substitute the office with a meeting
place that is not digital?
The pandemic has generated a lot of pain and has
ruined the lives of thousands of people. On the
other hand, it has managed to temporarily stop the
global capitalist machine, which has clearly been
operating beyond its means. What we have to do
now is try to hold onto the positive aspects of digi-
tal living and slowly revive in-person activities and
behaviours. What will continue to be a priority – and
it certainly won’t be easy – is the question of whe-
ther or not we will be able to recover our digital
public spaces.
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