Category: Tracing Connecting Spaces

Trazando Espacios > Tracing Connecting Spaces

Quetepe Alley

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Cumaná, State of Sucre, Venezuela. November 2016.

Team: Ana Vargas, Raquel Portillo, Ana Rodríguez and Diana Ruiz.

 The Tracing  Spaces project for Quetepe Alley  was held in the historic center of the city of Cumaná, thanks to the  with the partnership with the  Cumana Historic Center Foundation and the Inter-American Development Bank.  To conduct this workshop part of the TEP team traveled to the city of Cumaná and spent a week  working with 15 youth  between the ages of 9 and 16, residents of this  historic center.

In this program the young people learned to see their community from a new perspective. Using photography as a tool, they took pictures of  more than twenty places that reflected the local identity and the spaces that had potential for  transformation. They chose, along with members of the community, one that is  special to them: "The Quetepe Alley".

After choosing the place to intervene and conducting surveys with neighbors to identify local needs, participants made models to express their ideas and propose different types of furniture, planters and decorative elements for  the alley which is  approximately 70 meters long and 2.5 meters wide.

Based on the design proposals made, students built  benches made of  recycled pallets to sit individually or in pairs, along with planters for shade trees, as well as a few wall planters to plant  herbs for the use of  local residents. Colorful pennants along the street added to the decor of  Quetepe Alley.

This week's experience confirmed  that the historic center of Cumaná is full of places with potential for the  tourism sector: its picturesque architecture and various public spaces are ideal to welcome tourists and give life to this area.

The intervention carried out in the Quetepe Alley is simple but forceful in its intention to be an alternative to activation of public space by transforming a 70 meter long alley that was  used just to pass through, into a place where pedestrians are invited to stay and share  in a pleasant space full of color and greenery.

El Sabor Staircases

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José Félix Ribas, Petare, Venezuela. June 18, 2016

Team: Ana Vargas, Raquel Portillo, Ana Cristina Rodríguez,Gabriela Puppio.

Two hundred volunteers became the protagonists of the project “Tracing spaces in the El Sabor staircases”. The stage chosen for the intervention was the 275-step stairway in the  José Félix Ribas neighborhood of Petare, one of the biggest slums in Latin America. The challenge was to lay the children’s book “Blue and Red” published by Camelia Ediciones, written by Mireya Tabuas and illustrated by the artist Patricia Van Dalen and the designer Ricardo Báez.

The day started with a storytelling session by Nancy Moreno from “Pasa la Cebra”. The story is about a mom who likes the color blue and a dad who likes red. “Both of them believe their color is the best one and they force their son to choose his favorite. He picks purple because is a mixture of both, that’s why we are using purple shirts today.”  These are the words of Jean Luis, a boy that lives in the area and excitedly narrates the story.

The children shaked  the spray cans forcefully for at least three minutes, that was the instruction. The spray cans rattled like maracas to the rhythm of the kid’s excitement. In the meantime, other groups laid the tiles in colors referencing the book’s illustrations.

In five hours the book was written and illustrated up the stairway. Juan, a builder of the neighborhood tells us about the highlight of the day: “Many groups gathered in the plaza near the stairs to lay the tiles. It was the best moment of the day because it illustrated the image of the story when two circles, blue and red overlap to create a new color: purple”. From this moment on, the effort of going up and down the stairs to the plaza was made more pleasant with art and literature.

Now, every time the neighbors walk up the stairs to their homes and they read the story, surely, they’ll remember this message: We can coexist while celebrating our differences. At the end of the day, we are a mix of colors, emotions, hopes and  dreams; we are all like the color purple.