From discomfort to the problematization of territorial memories in the City of the Arts

Abstract

In this paper I intend to reflect on a trajectory of construction of memories in and from the classroom, seeking to read in perspective the articulations between teaching and extension in a series of educational experiences -in which I participated- that, nourished by dialogues with the organized community, tried to permeate the structure of formal education.
We are located in the city of Córdoba, in Ciudad de las Artes, the current headquarters of the Provincial University of Córdoba. The same premises where decades ago the Intelligence Detachment operated during the last civil-military dictatorship and which was a neuralgic part of the repressive apparatus of the province of Cordoba. In this place, from the Higher Technicatura in Photography we developed a series of aesthetic-educational experiences that sought to promote reflective processes and awareness in the whole educational community and society in general.
I recover my experience as a teacher in this university, challenged by the motivation to problematize the ways of inhabiting the spaces of artistic training, inscribed in their own historicities. To this end, I propose to reflect on the intersections between popular education, pedagogy of memory and university extension; and from there to address the question of its transformative power, as a subjectivizing experience that enables different processes of interaction and questioning. I will focus on one of the experiences, the creation of the EX 141 M Parque de Memorias Cinéticas, for its capacity to amplify the dialogue with the community, opening different circles of interaction. Given that these are educational and extensionist experiences that are somewhat atypical - in which the notion of territoriality of the experience overlaps with that of the educational space where they are generated - it is also appropriate for me to reflect on the relevance of considering their inscription in the model of critical extension.