Project

Hallo: Plataforma Trafaria

What if a multidisciplinary incubator sets up in an unique location on the periphery deeply affected by the crisis? Believing that citizens need non-institutional spaces to cultivate new models of thinking for alternative solutions, we propose to convert Trafaria’s old prison into a temporary laboratory.

In 2016, EDA collaborated with Hallo Festspiele (Hamburg) to bring the Presidio da Trafaria to life, to research and develop possible futures for this place. Born from the Casa do Vapor project (Cova do Vapor 2013), EDA promotes collective projects focused on culture as an activation tool for urban revitalization. It crosses a multidisciplinary international network of collaborators with specific local contexts and its communities.

Hallo Festspiele is an artistic autopoietic space developing format that uses a transdisciplinary festival to combine playful research with innovative forms of communication and hands-on laboratories. It wants to establish a space opening culture in physically or socially closed places by means of architecture, performance, play, discourse and music – with the collaboration of neighbours and artists.

Merging their approaches, EDA and Hallo launched Hallo Plataforma, the official public kick-off of Plataforma Trafaria. A team with a wide range of skills, knowledge and backgrounds, composed of international guests, local actors and inhabitants, installed itself in a part of the Presidio complex. During two weeks it prototyped possible functionings of Presidio: the kitchen was reactivated, a wood workshop opened, fresh baked daily several artistic projects that took place in and out of the prison walls were initiated, and inhabitants and local associations shared amazing stories and insights about the region and the place. Many were interested in joining to think about the future of the Presidio.

With the help of ConstructLab and Colectivo Warehouse, we improved the living and working conditions in presidio, building up a co-working space and dormitories, an agora for music, performance and video projection…

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