public visioning
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it feels so nice t changes to your to bring life to y which after are all of us, togeth IN between : small urban initiatives A project, realised by the people of Mladost 3, Sofia, Bulgaria with the financial support and cooperation of BLGU. Sofia 2013
Balkans, let’s get up!
to bring r surrounding, your ideas, given life by her...
I’ve been living in Mladost 3, a district of Sofia, since I know myself. It is an area which emerged during the 70’s and 80’s, populated with panel blocks, generic and gray. Those buildings gave home to the newly become citizens, brought from all over the country - mainly military personnel and engineers. I remember the early 90’s, right after the fall of the Iron Curtain, it was a wild place, distant from downtown and close to nature, with lot of fruit trees laying around the blocks, and lot of fields to discover and to play on. After 2000, the area became wilder, but in an urban sense. The movement of people increased towards the capital city, faces started to change, as the environment itself. The process of further urbanisation resulted in loss of open green spaces, which were turned into huge, often hostile and ugly buildings, and into improvised parking spaces for the rapidly increased number of cars.
I remember when the neighbourhood’s biggest field, which was our park between the blocks, became a fence. I kept on looking how one neighbour, walking his dog, was there, which very soon would became “inside”. Inside the earth, as the diggers kept on digging, meter after meter. I had a dream shortly after that, watching at the field from the terrace. It was in huge flames, blazing in the night. It was gone. The burning sensation kept on burning, because I couldn’t do anything. Such an awful feeling.
Being away brin perspective and also new ideas to solve some old problems. This is what I realised after being away for 8 months from my home and country. I was looking at the 8 new buildings in front and couldn’t find any inspiration. It all has been left to the construction companies. I took a look at the back, to the space left between the blocks. It was a children playground and a football field. At least a decade ago. When I was looking at it, the playgrounds were turned into parking spaces and the football field was just a muddy crossroad for the cars. This space triggered my curiosity and I realised it is a crossing point of the public and private interests. It also shows the growing apathy in all of the social actors - the people and the municipality. I got creative and started to think how could we improve the area and how could I avoid another nightmare in my dreams. I spoke with the ecologist in the municipality, it was crearly a public space. I was strugling with the ideas, with the space itself. Still I was just on the surface of complexity of the problem. Then, as a sign of faith, an open call emerged by a promising young organisation called Balkans Let’s Get Up. I put my thoughts in the application form of the Ecological Spring School, and month after that a voice on the phone told me I am in.
ngs new
WHY ARE YOU C DOWN!? I asked the official, standing next to the workers, cutting the big tree, one of the few standing in the open space. He told me something that stoke me so hard. There was a petition for cutting it down, signed by the people living in the block next to it. I couldn’t believe it, almost made me cry. This happened few weeks prior to my ecological spring school and I asked myself do I really want to do something in this area, since the inhabitants make petitions for cutting trees. After the initial disappointment, I said to myself that if there are people willing to cut a tree, there will be some willing to plant a tree (3rd law in the mechanical physics, Newton).
CUTTING IT
One swallow do the spring* * but three could do the job.
oes not make The spring school gave me lot of inspiration for the implementation of what has become a project. I gathered a team around me, that helped things happen. We made an open plan, so that we actually work together with our neighbours and make decisions together.
Reality check happened on our first neighbours meeting. There were all ages present. Most of them felt shy to express any ideas for the space. I can say they were surprised by our questions, looking for their opinion and creativity. Most of them spoke about how the space looked 20 or 30 years ago, how they are paying taxes and how the municipality doesn’t do anything since decades. They thought of making a petition. Fortunately, there were some people, thinking proactive, who liked the ideas about more trees, about organizing parking spaces, etc. In them I saw partners for future actions. The meeting was an excellent example how the common man doesn’t think he could make a change to his environment, how everything is related to the local government and that’s it. Then it was July. August is a vacancy month and we initiated a second main meeting in September. It was planned to point out specific activities for the upcoming month.
Then I got a phone call from the municipality two days before the meeting. It was about some old benches they have and asked me do I want them. This call made me really happy, because a dialogue with the local government was present, and our meetings with them were paying off. On our 2nd block meeting, after my announcement of the news, I got such a negative reaction, which surprised me. People said that this is so little, just some old benches given to us. They wanted more, they wanted what they thought they deserved after all these years of nothingness. But we all knew no one have the magic wand in here. Finally I got support by few neighbours and went to gather the old benches, which were really old.
Step by step or otherwise you would drain yourself. We all learned a lot by working in the public space, dealing with people. We had a good mental state towards the process and we knew in order things to happen, we have to be patient and persistent. One step at a time. This is the sustainable way. On our first work weekend, we got only one participant from the blocks, who helped us for few hours digging holes in the hard ground. There were 7 benches with 2 legs each, 3 persons and 2 picks.
We had hard tim bringing the benches, but the most effort was put in installing them. We were just three persons and our tools were primitive and just two. Because of this we were working for two days. As this might seem negative, actually later it proofed to be a positive thing, because the neighbours noticed us, saw something is happening. Standing and watching here is a national sport, especially through the kitchen window. In our last day, we were very happy with the results, and thought how good these benches would look with new paint. And this is what we planned for the next weekend.
me
Cre
eativity sparkled in the process of work. We discovered some hidden treasures of the terrain and realised the potential for play and interaction in the public space. The broken water fountain for a moment became a table, its mosaic base could become flower pot, a colourful picture, or a children’s playground. All this depended on us. And since we started to play with the space, we felt the actual power we have now. And maybe we can change the world.
Tom Sawyer can learn you how to bring people’s attention. For the next weekend we invited our neighbours to join the process of painting our new benches. It was a sunny day, we got support from our neighbours and got lot of attention by the people passing by. That was our first communal day and it was perfect! Everybody enjoyed it to the fullest. What I loved about the work is that it provoked few persons to step in the field of creativity, which was a foreign land. With spray cans in their hand, they discovered the power of the colours and their own skills. In the end we had the most wonderful benches in the hood.
A neighbour came to us at one point. He gave us a smart idea, that I think he kept for some time in his head. Some of the old benches had broken planks, that we couldn’t replace at that time. But we could take one of the two, used for back support and move them down, in order to sit on them. After a while the benches were almost as new, and more comfortable. This illustrates how the process has its own life and tempo, how people start to contribute, when they see a positive change. Same goes to the person, who gave us two buckets of paint.
Work with what is something we all have learned from our parents, especially by our grandparents. Our surroundings are full with remembrances of our past that partly are destroyed, partly forgotten. For some they are rubbish, that better be replaced or simply removed. For us it is something to lean on, to play with.
you have
Reuse, reduce, recycle, play.
Protect me and you with my sha was written on the signs, we put next to the newly put trees. Before reaching this point, we went through a process of announcing the plan to the neighbours and asking for support - both financial and work. There was a discussion what kind of threes there should be, only one kind or many? Should we get fruit trees as well? I had to learn some things about tree planting. As every thing, it was not as simple as it seemed - the timing, the species, the soil, the watering. After planning the position of the trees and getting some little financial support from our neighbours it was time to buy the trees. Fortunately we found a truck to bring us the 11 trees. On that day we got the biggest number of helpers. It was great to work together with so many people.
I will protect adow
A near neig than a
ghbour is better a distant cousin is something we understood very clearly when one of our tools broke up in two. I finally went to buy a new pick, and by the time I returned to the ground, there were three new picks, dropped by one neighbour who was watching us from his terrace. Essential part of the planting is the watering, which for 11 trees is about 220 litres. Because we didn’t have any hose, we thought we are going to water them with buckets, carrying them 4 floors up and down, up and down, till we water them all. Fortunately, another neighbour came with a hose and everything worked out great. I can say that his day, we all worked as a team and we saw that the communal spirit is alive.
What should we was the most common question I got asked in the following days after the planting. I didn’t and still don’t have a clear answer to that, but in the following month I saw some people had some ideas. The first thing that happened was the eruption of parking poles, which were actually too much in some places, and made people angry on the municipality, because it has just cut their way, which was there for 20 years.
e do next What was nice to see in the empty improvised flower pot was...flowers. With them the little square became complete.
Shortly after that three new trees grew out of nowhere! Wow, this is something. We, together, with our own money, tools, time and energy, made this transformation of the space, which shows a start of a process, which brings people together, and brings them joy. I believe soon we will gather the fruits of our work, literally.
in memory 1976 –
y of a tree – 2013