Leveraging culture for positive urban change

At the end of September 2024 the City of Halandri hosted the first EUI Policy Lab. Aimed at exploring the role of culture and cultural heritage for stronger communities and sustainable cities, the event gathered city officers, practitioners, politicians and experts from 16 different EU member states. A relevant learning and exchange initiative, the Policy Lab was a priceless occasion for the Cultural H.ID.RA.N.T. partnership to reflect on outputs and outcomes of the locally performed actions, and to discuss with a wider and experienced audience the potential for transferability, scalability and further development of what was achieved so far.

26th and 27th September 2024 were thrilling and exciting days for Halandri, as the first EUI Policy Lab took place in the city. Dedicated to discuss how to leverage culture for positive urban change, the Lab was imagined as an opportunity to share and reflect basing on practical experiences and achievements through selected practices (1).The Lab had two main objectives: to favor knowledge transfer between local authorities, ensuring that valuable lessons are effectively shared across the EU; and to generate new knowledge to equip city practitioners with tools and practical information to leverage their cultural assets for positive change.

The Policy Lab was meant to promote a discussion on the transformative power of Culture and Cultural heritage, and its role in supporting social cohesion and environmental improvements in urban areas. Organized as an intense and articulated set of activities, the Lab started with four study visits, then continued with a more general framing of the topic (what do we mean by culture and cultural heritage?), and an inspirational speech (culture in cities as commoning). The definition of four clusters helped participants explore different domains and approaches, and structured dynamic sessions of learning and exchange activities. Finally the relationship between practical experimentations and the larger policy frameworks was incorporated, and helped shape a dialogue with the representatives of the EU institutions.

the policy lab participants

The local perspective… in 4 itineraries

The learning and exchange activities in the Lab were anticipated by the site visits: this happened by design, with the idea of making a proactive use of the experience produced by the City of Halandri during the last years. Not only then the Lab’s discussion was based on selected practices (Cultural HIDRANT + 10 more from all over Europe), but it could also benefit from hands-on information, shared by the local partnership and discussed with the participants on site. Furthermore the very content of the site visits was imagined and defined in close connection with the four areas of reflection (clusters) that structured the Policy Lab.

The green and blue revival

This site visit was dedicated to two out of the four regenerated areas (El Alamein str., Gyftopoulou str.) and focused on the solutions for public spaces: the visible components of the Hadrian aqueduct (tank and wells) as historical monuments are put in relationship with the invisible underground route of the Hadrian aqueduct through architectural and landscape elements. The integration of pumping stations and infrastructures for the exploitation of the water resource in the design for new public spaces intertwines with an increased greenery and the existing offer of outdoor spaces. This all contributes to addressing the consequences of the greenhouse effect by introducing mitigating elements. New and creative lighting has also been foreseen by the city that marks the passing of the ancient aqueduct, characterising the new public spaces.

The Stream and the school: a story of participatory design

The visit focused on the 6th Gymnasium of Chalandri, where the students designed their schoolyard within the project's work. To shape and strengthen the local identities, Cultural H.ID.RA.N.T. worked on memories, sense of ownership and intangible heritage. This meant letting hidden but rooted collective knowledge emerge and combine them with the values guiding the project - both in its physical expressions and in its deepest meanings. Diverse and tailored languages to all groups of the local community were put in place, with the intention to establish a much stronger relationship with water, and to make water a common ground for the implementation of local actions. A good example of this is the interaction with secondary schools students: starting as a conversation both on the meanings of the aqueduct for the city and on the local specific implications of the project, it evolved into a concrete discussion on the transformation of the schools surrounding areas, and finally into the implementation of new collective spaces.

Waterways of time: exploring the aqueduct’s heritage

What does Halandri remember of the ancient roman aqueduct? The establishment of a digital archive combining institutional and everyday knowledge, collecting and organising the raw material into an open access platform has been undertaken since Cultural H.ID.RA.N.T. project early stages. This process went beyond content collection and production, working as a significant and useful opportunity to activate the local network of stakeholders (i.e. the Oral history group, the Association for environmental and river protection of Pentelis-Chalandri, etc.). Initially imagined as a tool focused on the aqueduct, along its development the archive helped setting up a broader vision for a more profound connection with local history, collective memories and experiences. Through the establishment of a new connection with water, the local archive became a tool in the hands of the local communities to continue exploring its connection with the past and to frame its relationship with the future.

Water on wheels: a new service for water management and distribution

The recovery of the Hadrian Aqueduct stimulates an important conversation about water as commons, something that belongs to everybody and therefore, needs to be preserved, protected and wisely managed. The introduction of a new source into the water supply system of the city is a crucial means to foster a new awareness and collective responsibility on resource management. The Municipality’s task to establish a “water community”, shows a multilevel approach combining the engagement and empowerment of different actors, the establishment of a new shared water culture, the identification of the most suitable legal and administrative frameworks, the definition of a governance structure and the negotiation about roles and duties for institutions and public bodies, in order to let citizens access this new resource and participate its management.

4 areas of content

The perspective offered by Cultural HIDRANT could benefit from insights and relevant exchanges offered by a variety of different contributions that were part of the learning and exchange programme offered by the Lab. In fact, the Policy Lab built on the results of the Urban Agenda for the EU (UAEU), Urban Innovative Actions (UIA), EUI and URBACT practices, experiences and pilots. These helped facilitate knowledge transfer between local authorities, ensuring that valuable lessons were effectively shared across the EU. Examining concrete results of city experiments was key in this sense, as the event aimed to generate new knowledge to equip city practitioners with tools and practical information to leverage their cultural assets for positive change. Four articulated and intertwined areas of content were hence imagined to activate learning and exchange between the participants:

Vacancy, adaptive reuse, temporary uses, cultural hubs. A discussion focused on the threshold between the tangible and intangible dimensions of cultural heritage, which strategies and tools we can put in place to activate new cooperative development models, new rules, and new ways to manage city assets fostering more cooperative and solidarian approaches to communities and spaces in the city.
Dissonant heritage, decolonisation of culture, informal knowledge, democracy, gender. Exploring culture and cultural heritage as something evolving and capable of incorporating new values over time, as much as help put into perspective previous, critical and dissonant memories and experiences.
Climate change, sustainability, solidarity. To discuss cultural and natural significance of heritage, going beyond the mere act of preserving, maintaining, or protecting to embrace a more complex (potentially conflictual) relationship between tangible and intangible dimensions, value and revenue, power, government, and governance.
Processes, regulations, procurement. To explore how legal and operational patterns can be reshaped to make room for emerging new values into new practices, keeping together the institutionalisation of more informal frameworks, and de-structuring of more formalised approaches.

workshop

EU related, locally relevant

The report of the work delivered during the Policy Lab is currently under construction, and will result in a possibly clear and concise document, providing an evidence-based and practice based set of recommendations. This is related to the overall objective of the Lab, and goes far beyond the contextual conditions, as it addresses a wider audience of potential beneficiaries of its achievement and exchanges.

Anyway, it is important to stress some relevant implications of this experience for the Cultural H.ID.RA.N.T. local partnership, and for the City of Halandri as a whole. Undoubtedly, taking part in the preparation of such an important and unprecedented initiative, was a priceless occasion to locally build capacity and confront organizational, logistic and operational challenges. From the political point of view, being recognized as a forefront practice and hosting the event, has a great value, and can potentially build an important legacy based on the direct confrontation between the municipal authority and the wider system of institutional actors of the EU. Finally, the possibility to confront with a wider audience of policy and decision makers, practitioners, EU officers, helped the local partnership further develop its thinking on: how to mobilize heritage as a resource, activating new processes and practices and unlocking the full potential of local cultural heritage; how to use heritage to strengthen democracy and solidarity, leveraging on cultural heritage and its significances to foster inclusive practices; and finally how to leverage heritage to drive societal and institutional change, developing innovative planning tools and governance frameworks.

panel

NOTES:

(1) besides Cultural HIDRANT, ten more practices took actively part to the Policy Lab: DARE Ravenna, IT; T-Factor Horizon project advanced case study, City of Łódź, PO; CAMINA, Almeria, ES; UAEU Partnership, Kazanlak, BG; ForwArt, Tilburg, NL; New EU Bauhaus demonstrator, Aarhus, DK; NEB Desire, Horizon 2020; City of Torino, UIA Co-City; CUP4Creativity, Újbuda - Budapest, HU; Future of Work, Cluj-Napoca, RO

The local perspective… in 4 itineraries

4 areas of content

EU related, locally relevant

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