Pictured above: The group during one of the many site visits that they are conducting this week.
The graduate school CAPS (Creative Approaches to Public Space) is organizing an intensive Erasmus+ training week, the blended intensive program "Public Arts Garage," from November 4 to 8, 2024, as part of its activities.
In addition to participants from Rennes 2 University, this program brings together university communities (teachers and students) from:
- Bauhaus University Weimar, Germany
- University of Barcelona, Spain
- University College Cork, Ireland
The Rennes Pitstop of the Public Arts Garage builds on the two Public Arts Garage modules, initially co-designed by Alexandra Regan-Toland and Martin Leibinger (Bauhaus-Universität Weimar) in collaboration with faculty members and students from the University of Barcelona, Concordia University (Montreal), Queen’s University Belfast (Northern Ireland), Rennes 2 University (France) and University College Cork (Ireland) and first developed in Spring and Summer of 2022.
A first meeting was held in Barcelona in the fall of 2023, following on from collaborations initiated within the international program of CAPS led by Rennes 2.
Designed to promote collaborative practices and the development of new approaches to urban space, this intensive training program has been created in a hybrid format (with online and in-person seminars). The preparation of both online and in-situ sessions was carried out in collaboration with Ms. Silvy Panet-Raymond from Concordia University.
The program includes meetings, visits to various third places in Rennes, and workshops.
“Third Spaces as Intercultural Places for Commoning”
The term Third Space is used to characterize locations outside “home” (first space) and “work” (second space) where people engage social relations. Ray Oldenburg who coined the term, argues that third places are important for civil society, democracy and civic engagement, as they answer to the desire to promote a sense of community and help to establish feelings of a sense of belonging. Nothing contributes to a sense of belonging in a community as much as membership in a third place.
For the Public Arts Garage BIP in Rennes 2024, we would like to focus on alternative creative spaces whether they are mainstream Third Spaces or underground temporary occupations: how can this type of space increase or make creativity emerge? Situated in a kind of Third Space off the university site, for the past 3 years the Graduate School CAPS has been exploring interdisciplinary and cross methodologies, field studies, and artistic or action research, that are all based on experimentation, on field studies, participatory projects and temporary occupation.This course interrogates how Third Places can stimulate artistic and interdisciplinary research and can become themselves a topic for research.
This work has been funded by the Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR) as part of the France 2030 future investment programme, under the reference ANR-18-EURE-0007.
More details and the full program are available here.
