Educational Program

New Season

Red Planea – Fundación Daniel y Nina Carasso

Within the framework of the social component that we have developed in Concéntrico, we present a new educational programme that will take the spirit of the project to schools throughout Spain. This initiative has the collaboration of the art and school network PLANEA, promoted by the Daniel and Nina Carasso Foundation, and the support of the Government of La Rioja through the Centro Riojano de Innovación Educativa.

The programme consists of two projects: ‘Nervaduras y conos’ by Matali Crasset + Taller enBlanco and ‘Como vivimos la escuela, como vivimos la ciudad’ by the artist Maider López, which will reach 32 schools throughout Spain in the 2024/25 school year. The call for schools will be published on 8 November, with registration via the following website.

These interventions de-seasonalise the Concéntrico proposals, as the work is extended through shared processes.

‘Nervatures and cones’ by matali crasset + Taller enBlanco

The project is based on the premise that the manifestations of nature are subject to the demands of space, time and the forces of matter. This mediation seeks a harmony that we must rediscover by reducing the abundant variety of forms to a few fundamental archetypes: a spine materialised by a rib, and the cone multiplied at different scales.

matali crasset, a French designer, has defended design as an artistic, anthropological and social practice since the beginning of her career. She focuses on her dedication to creativity, people and everyday life, with a deep conviction in the value of the processes that are implemented and the links forged in the development of her projects. For this project, she has designed a creative resource box that can be implemented through a methodology developed by Taller enBlanco, a cultural collective associated with Concéntrico.

‘How we live the school, how we live the city’ by Maider López

The project consists of creating a collective and subjective map of the classroom, the school and the city through the students’ experience of their surroundings.

Depending on how they experience the public space, the schoolchildren will place five pieces in different points following a colour code. To do this, we will offer each schoolchild 5 pieces so that they can attribute a meaning to each colour and place them in different places according to their connection to the place, mark the location of each piece on an individual map, and then pass it on to the collective map. The project will be documented by means of snapshots of the places where they place the pieces, drawings and descriptions of their experiences and a collectively prepared map where the participants mark the landmarks where they have placed the pieces of each colour.

Thus, in addition to paying attention to how we feel in each place, reviewing our emotions and remembering experiences there, creating a collective map from individual experiences, sharing them and building the place from our emotions. The project can show how the same place can mean different things to different people, or make visible the students’ dissatisfaction with a particular area of the school. The project creates a subjective and temporary signposting, making visible how the pupils feel in each space.

The artist Maider López develops her work by intervening in public space and architecture. Her interventions aim to break with the static nature of things and places, opening up the territory of negotiation and inviting us to seek new ways of seeing and relating.

Educational spaces

Concéntrico 10

Red Planea – Fundación Daniel y Nina Carasso

Since 2015, the festival has carried out more than 120 urban installations, in addition to the ones we will carry out in 2024. Its development involves numerous collectives and entities that promote new collective practices in the public space from the local sphere: educational centres of different levels or associated cultural entities that weave a cohesive network with the city.

In 2024 we incorporated the proposals:

Outpost Office with the methodology Drawing with robots that modified the patterns of use of the playgrounds of two centres: IES Batalla de Clavijo and CEIP Duquesa de la Victoria.

Alei Verspoor with a series of workshops, which can be extended to all citizens and schoolchildren – families, based on an open process with the Escuela Superior de Diseño de La Rioja, from the fashion and interiors department.

Cuaderno de surcos by ji arquitectos + Blas Antón for Viña Lanciano. Through a poem, they propose to rethink the landscape of La Rioja through drawings by primary school children, an open call to explore themes such as landscape linked to the identity of the territory, ecology, sustainability and the plant environment.

The Street in 10 Years, an open programme with Porto Academy, in which we incorporate IES Sagasta to study the environment of La Glorieta, Duquesa de la Victoria street and Beti Jai for a period of 10 years.

Educational spaces

Concéntrico 09

Red Planea – Fundación Daniel y Nina Carasso

These interventions deseasonalise the Concéntrico proposals, as the work is extended through shared processes. In some cases they will remain until the month of August, such as the Birdhouses that facilitate nesting throughout the season, or indefinitely in the school playground in the case of the Studio Ossidiana sandboxes.

The garden of intersections

Studio Ossidiana – Plaza San Bartolomé

One of these experiences is carried out with the intervention of Studio Ossidiana, which inhabits the Plaza de San Bartolomé and then moves on to the Las Gaunas school, a nursery and primary school where they are developing design processes with the pupils. During two weeks in April, the teaching staff will carry out different activities using the installation as a vehicle to talk about territory and pigments (the sandboxes incorporate different soils from La Rioja) and also about the city, as the project bases its architecture on local heritage (castles, battlements, windows…).

La rebelión del Crazy Army

Recetas Urbanas – IES Batalla de Clavijo surroundings

Along the same lines, the Recetas Urbanas project (Santiago Cirugeda and Alice Attout) in the surroundings of the IES Batalla de Clavijo has brought together all levels of high school in a collective strategy that proposes to “storm” the centre from the outside by means of walkways, Trojan horses, mobile towers, zip lines… These collective constructions will be coordinated by different technicians, teachers and advisors, who will collaborate in the process and in the assembly, including, in addition, some members of the Lakalle Association, which, although based in Vallecas, will come to collaborate in this experience. In this way, the teenagers become the main actors and propose alternative ways of using public spaces in connection with the “Batalla”.

Birdhouses Glorieta

Hollmén Reuter Sandman – Glorieta del Doctor Zubía

The Finnish architectural studio incorporates sensitivity to the environment, materials and landscape to re-inhabit La Glorieta, the city’s central park. An analysis of the site, together with species research with local ornithologists, has resulted in an intervention that incorporates 24 bird boxes to recover the birds that migrate from March onwards. The Sagasta Secondary School and its Biology students will study the most frequent species of birds and bats in the Glorieta: by means of cards on each one, observations, taking photographs, in a strategy to understand and care for the environment of the schools.

Spaces and Education

Among the various activities in the interventions and centres, we propose the Conversations on Spaces and Education, CRIE and Red Planea together with educational centres in La Rioja with:

Sofía Coca, ZEMOS98 / PLANEA, art and school network
Cristina Alba, Cotidiana SCA cooperative of architects
Alicia Bernardos, IES Menéndez Pelayo (Getafe)

Date: 27 April 2023
Time: 19:00 hours
Place: Esdir conference room