First PALIMPSEST Residential Workshop in Jerez de La Frontera

The inaugural Residential Workshop of the Research Project PALIMPSEST – Creative Drivers for Sustainable Living Heritage took place in Jerez de la Frontera at the beginning of April. It was an immersive 10 days of work, filled with exploration, dialogue, and discussion when a transdisciplinary team of 15 people from 9 different institutions engaged in a creative brainstorming process together with Estelle Jullian (Culturama), the artist selected through the “Creative Dialogues” Open Call. The research-art residency stands as a pivotal phase in the co-creation process of the PALIMPSEST Project and has as a primary objective to collaboratively work towards developing a project idea capable of bridging the transformative potential of creative action with objectives related to landscape sustainability and local needs.

Who participated?

The residential workshop hosted Estelle Jullian, the artist awarded in the competitive Creative Dialogues for her project The Songs by Nearby Earth. Several members of the PALIMPSEST consortium participated, bringing forth diverse expertise, perspectives, and sensitivities. Among them: Nomad Garden (as local curator), the Municipality of Jerez de la Frontera (as pilot leader), the Service Design Lab of Aalborg University (as responsible for the methodological framework and the co-creation experiment),  the Basque Centre for Climate Change (as PALIMPSEST Assessment framework responsible), CulturaLink (as CCI and Value production expert), NovelCore (as Technical Support Partner), Karakorum Teatro (as observer and local curator for the Milan Pilot) and DAStU from Politecnico di Milano (as PALIMPSEST coordinator) with Irene Bianchi and Talita Medina. 

These days provided the opportunity to get in touch with many actors in the social ecosystem, who guided us through the exploration of Jerez, its living cultural heritage, the environmental challenges it is facing, and the city’s relationship with wine production.

Why Jerez de la Frontera?

The PALIMPSEST Project aims to explore the transformative potential of hybrid pathways – at the intersection of creativity, research, and local action – in landscapes grappling with sustainability challenges in various forms. In this perspective, Jerez de la Frontera’s landscape is interesting for several reasons, starting from its deeply rooted identity, intertwined with flamenco tradition and agricultural practices in wine production. The rural landscape is facing multifaceted crises related to shifts in labour markets, local economies, and mounting pressures from climate change. Moreover, this landscape is undergoing transformation due to the installation of wind and photovoltaic power plants. Tradition, future visions, conflicts, and the imperative for change: what better ingredients to experiment with?

What Did We Do?

1. We collectively explored the landscape of Jerez de la Frontera through walks, visits, and meetings. These activities aided in better understanding its evolving dynamics, the challenges it faces, and the perspectives of various local stakeholders.
2. We worked on developing the idea, starting from the proposal selected during the Creative Dialogues, namely “The Songs by Nearby Earth.” To achieve this, we initiated discussions involving not only different project partners but also local stakeholders who helped ground the process development in landscape generation practices.
3. We brainstormed how to experiment with the idea within the reference context, envisioning potential prototyping pathways.

 Want to know more about the next steps? Stay tuned!!

Photo credits: Nomad Garden