Fostering the common: Transformative socio-cultural innovation through co-creativity among citizens

Abstract

The research core is related to a set of participatory art and design projects developed with different disenfranchised communities in Portugal and abroad. The objective of the practice in question is to engage citizens in co-creative situations focusing on their skills and ambitions, heritage, tradition, local habits, and plurality, which is implemented through different coalitions with other creative agents, public institutions, the charitable sector, among others as appropriate. Some key concepts are presented in order to go deeper in the understanding of this hybrid practice system­ atization: (1) the importance of human and other than human systems interconnectedness for the rehabilitation of our planet as a whole; (2) the notion of a panarchy connecting local to global entities, from the molecular to the planetary, as a relevant logic to understand the transformations that occur at the individual level in the social body, along with the various socio-ecological systems; (3) and the idea of a mechanism to boost the level of creativity in a social group that works through a reinforcing feedback loop. The essay concludes that participatory art and small-scale design projects involving citizens in transforma­ tive socio-cultural innovation can effectively affect larger systems through a more or less gradual transformation.