20 mai 2015

Une réflexion sur des espaces publics abandonnés en Grèce

Dans le cadre du projet européen ERASMUS+, deux expat' de l'association sont parties représenter CARTON PLEIN sur l'île de Thassos, en Grèce pendant deux semaines, sur un projet piloté par Solidarity-Tracks basé à Lefkada. Au sein d'un groupe d'une trentaine de jeunes venant de plus de 10 différents pays européens, l'idée était de pouvoir partager des méthodologies de travail sur l'appréhension des espaces publics contemporains, leur animation, transformation et aménagement. À la croisée de ce sujet, une formation sur le social entrepreneurship nous a permis de comprendre comment les jeunes peuvent être à l'initiative de projets d'intérêt général, qu'ils soient sociaux ou environnementaux, tout en créant une véritable activité économique par la suite.

Que faire d'un espace public dit "abandonné" ? Quelle méthodologie mettre en place pour en faire une analyse sensible en vue de transformation ? Comment transmettre cette méthodologie ? Comment donner envie à des jeunes de s'emparer de ce sujet si criant dans nos villes aujourd'hui et d'être à l'initiative d'événements éphémères sur l'espace public ? Comment les amener à des actions en vues de transformations plus pérennes ? 

Dix jours très riches, dix jours qui nous ont permis de revenir avec de nouvelles idées plein la tête, de potentiels partenariats entre Saint-Étienne et l'ailleurs. To be continued !

Ici, le récit d'une journée passée dans différents petits village de l'île entre Panagia et Prinos où l'on a travaillé sur des espaces publics aux abords d'une école en rencontrant les enfants et l'association des parents d'élèves afin de leur livrer nos premières idées de potentiels aménagements et des méthodologies simples à mettre en place afin d'activer collaborativement certains espaces considérés comme abandonnés.
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Tt's nine fifteen, after having swallowed quickly our breakfast, we jump in the bus which is waiting for us :  it's time to leave for our excursion day. First stop in the school of Limenas, where we could see a realisation done by some pupils on the school and grafic artists. We continue our trip by going to Panagia. The sky is cloudy and rains starts to fall, but we are happy to discover other places of the island. We strated our walk by acceding to an "abondoned" playground, situated near a small religious place, which is in contrast still used by people. We noticed since we arrived in Greece, that most of the public spaces abondoned that are shown to us are playgrounds : we wonder if it is a real problematic of the island, and what is the reason why people don't take care of these areas ? Maybe the way of playing changed these last years and games proposed are not adapted anymore to the needs of the children?
The village is really nice, there are trees everywhere and plants crowding in all the spaces. We are impressed by the care and the beauty given to the front of the houses. There is no one house without flowers or decoration ! We question ourselves about the reason...Once, someone told us that their is a law in touristic villages in the south of France, were people have to take care of their houses and put plants in order to create a welcoming atmospher for the visitors. Is it the same here? Do people have the obligation of  taking "care" or is it cultural to share the spaces with nature? Anyway, it's beautiful…
We continue our walk and we follow the small river : it's really complicated to pass by, the streets are really tight at some points. It questions us about accessibility of public spaces. In France, since 2013, their are a lot of rules that forces authorities to think the accessibility of public spaces for everyone : people with desability for example. For example, It would be impossible for a person using a wheel chair to pass this area.  On another hand, changing this street to improve the accessibility would completely change the aspect and the authentic atmospher of this cute passage. What is the priority ? The accessibility or conserving the patrimony. This is all the challenge of public authorities and urban planners to think intelligently the two problematics.
Further on, we fell on lamps that where covered by plastic bags... why? We try to ask some questions to discover the reason : we are told that the plastic bags are temporary installed to protect the lamps when it's raining. It's intersesting to notice that a private initiative is made to conserv the quality of the publish equipment... Or are they private lamps ? 
The last part of the day takes part in the school of Prinos. Our challenge : think about the structure of four different public spaces surrounding the school. Children and people of the mother's association of the school joined us to give us information about the context. They are also here to think with us, and find new ideas. We spread ourselves in groups to build makets and to prototype some of the ideas : more flowers and trees, gardens, other games, more colors, benches, tables, etc. The ideas are not missing... But the question of the realisation is present : the school doesn't have a lot of money to invest, and some propositions will be difficult to realise.
An other group created a collaborative methodology that would be interesting to experiment in order to implicate not only children and professors of the school but also the surrounding of the school : parents, passers-by, friends, storekeepers...The idea would be to create events in order for everyone to meet and to think collaboratively this problematic.
Because as the name says "pubic space" is public, which means that everyone can use it and everyone has ideas for improving these spaces.The plurality of points of view will be the richness of the process, and the force of this future public space !
After this interesting day we all jump in the bus to go back to Limeneas... We can hear snoring in the bus.. this day was intensive !