We’re going to enjoy ourselves! This is what people have been saying for a little more than two months in the Txirrita school in the Ereñozu neighbourhood of Hernani.
The project resulting from the third School Peripheries call for proposals is taking place in this school, where teachers, students, families and neighbourhood agents are collaborating with the Tabakalera Mediation team in the Harremangunea project.
The objective of the programme is to review the relationships that occur in the school, placing the concept of “pleasure” at the centre of this process. We aim to search for and identify those pleasing situations, places and experiences that allow us to build new relationships that improve coexistence.
We still do not know what form the process will take. Proposals arise such as the transformation of the school playground, the creation of new materials and resources for playing or the dreaming up of other shared uses of the space. To give shape to these ideas we will collaborate with artists who will join the work already under way, providing new perspectives.
It is an open process that we are creating a little at a time. During the first phase of co-design we have reviewed the approach of the project together with the teaching staff and we have shared positions and work methodologies in art and education. In the second phase, that of development, we have begun work both in the classroom and outside it. Based on the students’ experiences, we have started an investigation to help us to think about what it is that really gives us pleasure and how we can reinforce and raise awareness about it in the school space.
The need to work on co-education has become one of the main principles on which we will base the stages to follow. In addition, the idea of working with artists who come from the world of architecture or intervention in public spaces is another possibility that might be pursued. The work is intense: many conversations, doubts, uncertainties, challenges and also satisfaction.
School Peripheries offers the opportunity and resources to start a learning process based on the relationships in school. It is the beginning of a journey that will continue later, in the hope that it will become a meaningful experience for the entire educational community.