MĂNĂȘTUR CENTRAL—CINEMA DACIA. Developing a concept for a new community centre in a vacant cinema in a large—scale housing district using a participatory process

Figura 1 Conference of the artist Dan Perjovschi at Mănăștur Days in Cinema Dacia. Photo credits Pan Ioan

Text by Elisabeth Kremer, Silviu Medeșan, Laura Panait

CONTEXT : A DENSELY POPULATED DISTRICT WITHOUT A COMMUNITY CENTER

Cluj-Napoca is the second most populous city in Romania with about 325,000 residents – and Mănăștur is one of its largest and most densely populated districts. The district primarily consists of socialist-era mass housing. Spaces for everyday communication and recreation are largely absent. Recently, the municipality invested in the renovation of a former cinema following a participatory budgeting process started in 2013. This renovation was completed in May 2016 – the city administration planned to create a community centre for the neighbourhood, but there were no plans regarding the activities that would take place there. Normally, the municipality manages the planning of the cultural program solely on a “first come, first served” basis, as is the case in other cultural centres in Cluj. But in Mănăștur, independent actors wanted a say – they want to be involved in the co-creation of programming for the only indoor meeting space in their neighbourhood.

CHALLENGE: RECREATION OPPORTUNITIES AND A FEELING OF COMMUNITY ARE LACKING

The absence of spaces for community-building makes itself apparent in a weak sense of identity and a lack of communication among residents. In addition, Mănăștur has a very unusual age structure. Many working-age people work outside of Romania and support their families financially from there. Instead of parents, it is often grandparents who must raise the children. This is a double burden in the context of the lack of recreational activities. Team Cluj thus faced a real challenge: bringing together neighbours in a socialist-era housing district who may not know each other very well, if at all, and creating not only collective and participatory cultural planning for the new cultural centre but also a feeling of community across generations.

STRATEGY: CULTURAL PROGRAMMING WITH AND BY THE RESIDENTS

Team Cluj, which was made up of a cultural manager from the association Colectiv A (Laura Panait), a freelance architect (Silviu Medeșan), and an arts teacher (Cezarina Kubina), focused on bringing life to the newly planned centre through participatory actions. Their goal was to build cultural programming together with the residents that corresponds to their resources, needs, and desires. To do this, the civil society actors in Team Cluj, Colectiv A, built on experience that they had gained through their project ‘At the Playgrounds – Shared Space in Mănăștur,’ started in 2012, in which they revitalized a nearby green space with low-threshold activities such as theatre projects and urban furniture building workshops. During their participation in Actors, their strategy was to transform the vacant “Cinema Dacia” into a centre where the residents – and thus also the different generations – of Mănăștur could meet. To do this, however, they first needed to get in touch with the residents and ask them what they wanted and needed.

Figura 2 Nmatu-Posu theatre company from Japan at Mănăștur Days 2016. Photo credits Pan Ioan

IMPLEMENTATION: COMMUNICATION AND VISIBILITY

In a first step, the cinema, which was opened in May 2016, needed to become a place where residents could meet, exchange views in workshops, and debate. The goal was to find out how this space could be transformed into a neighbourhood centre and simultaneously develop a feeling that everyone is part of this district. Thus, Team Cluj hosted a number of events in the cinema: the biggest events were two editions of the annual Neighbourhood Days, a 3-day event in the district with concerts, debates, and workshops with local, national, and international guests which attracts over 4,000 people each year. Within the framework of these events, Team Cluj brought in well-known hip-hop artists from Bucharest, which helped to increase publicity for the event. Cinema Dacia will play a central role in the 2017 Neighbourhood Days, which are currently being co-produced by an active group of local citizens. The team also organized a series of workshops and film screenings called ‘People. Cities. Environments.’ (three editions in Oct.-Nov. 2016), targeted at teenagers and adults. These events highlighted pressing issues in contemporary cities: ecology, waste, food production and consumption, traffic, and green spaces. Moreover, community theatre workshops were held regularly over a period of six months with a group of local teenagers building on experiences gained with open-stage formats outdoors in ‘At the Playgrounds;’ these workshops are still ongoing. In April 2017, a workshop on participatory design was organized with the Moradavaga architects collective (co-founded by a fellow Actor of Urban Change from Team Porto). In this activity, Team Cluj cooperated with architects, landscape designers, and inhabitants to plan an outdoor stage and urban furniture, which is to be installed in the ‘At the Playgrounds’ area.

IMPACT AND SUSTAINABILITY: ACTIVATION ON MANY LEVELS

One main impact of the project was the empowerment of citizens to take action for a local cause. The team facilitated the forming of the ‘Initiative Group for Dacia’ – a group of citizens (parents, teenagers, grandparents, active citizens) which drafted ‘The Strategy for Dacia’ in spring 2017. The group’s main goal: convincing the municipality to provide a permanent space for meetings in Cinema Dacia for all the NGOs and groups based in the area. The strategy document was handed personally to the Mayor of Cluj in Cinema Dacia on the occasion of the ‘Debate on the City Budget 2017.’ The fact that the cinema was chosen for this debate was also influenced by the team’s previous work on citizen participation in political decisions. The team won an important prize for civil society in Romania for their work in Mănăștur, the National Prize on Public Participation, at an event held in Bucharest in March 2017.Team Cluj has published a book about their experiences in Mănăștur – both the activation of the green space and Cinema Dacia – which will facilitate knowledge-sharing across projects and scaling up in the future. In addition to its activities at a national level, Team Cluj is also sharing its rich expertise in the Actors network, helping other teams to increase the impact of their projects while at the same time getting inspiration for their own project. In September 2016, the architect of the team was invited by Team Krasnoyarsk to produce a piece of art within the framework of their “Recycle Art Festival.”. The team was also invited by Team Geretsried to hold a workshop in their district Stein in May 2017. This meeting allowed for knowledge sharing and exchange of experience in community activation through the development of a cultural or community centre in diverse neighbourhoods.

TRANSFERABILITY

GENERAL PROBLEM

How does one activate local residents in order to increase self-esteem, social cohesion, and everyday interaction? And what role can a non-commercial community-run space play in the social and spatial development of a neighbourhood?

SUCCESS FACTORS

-          An established place (Cinema Dacia) run by the municipality already existed.

-           Co-production of the events with residents led to a high level of acceptance of the project and a higher likelihood that it will continue beyond the end of the Actors program.

-          Previous positive experience with and commitment in the neighbourhood played an important role. As this was not the first project that the team had completed in the neighbourhood, they could draw on an existing base of experience and trust, which speeded up the process of cooperation.

-          A strong team and close relationship with the community were vital.

   

     MOST IMPORTANT LESSONS

-          “Door openers” can be critical to the success of a project. Team Cluj was helped by very active members of the community who helped push the project along.

-          The cinema is a mono-functional space. This is a good start, but it is important to use other spaces in the neighbourhood as well.

-          Tactical use of media and public pressure: the team often used public pressure, supported by media, as a tool for convincing the authorities about their work for the neighbourhood.

-          The project showed the team how important cross-sectoral cooperation is, but also how fragile it is. In the process, they had to leave their comfort zone in order to make compromises between the three sectors. At one point, they also arrived at a point where compromise was no longer possible.

-           Interdisciplinary work and respecting diversity is a ‘modus vivendi’ in the local citizens’ initiative group, which involved many social classes, ages, professions, etc.

-          Public participation is a process that builds up progressively and must be present on multiple levels, including planning, co-designing, and implementing activities in the neighbourhood. It is a matter of choice and responsibility even when choosing which local food provider to involve in events.

This text was originally published in Schwegmann, M., Surwiłło-Hahn, A., & Kremer, E. (2017). Actors of Urban Change 2015-17. Program Documentation. (M. Schwegmann, A. Surwiłło-Hahn, & E. Kremer, Eds.). Stuttgart: Robert Bosch Stiftung GmbH. Retrieved from https://goo.gl/9Tc87B