Between Images and Communicable Objects: Exhibition Space as Cultural Mediation

Abstract

Drawing on the experience of doing-WITH solidarity kitchens, this essay offers reflections on the right to culture in peripheral communities through the participatory construction of two exhibitions. It describes an articulation among research, teaching, and outreach that united university actors and the communities of two solidarity kitchens: one in a peripheral area of Porto Alegre, southern Brazil, and another in an urban occupation in the city’s historic center. We present the exhibition design process as a dialogue among different bodies of knowledge that challenges dominant cultural processes. The goal is to share the experience and interpret the meanings that emerge from the challenges encountered during the development of the activities. This process was marked by recognition of the communities' political role and the intent to convert the exhibition space into a mechanism for cultural mediation and social transformation. The methodology was based on a participatory and collaborative process, supported by methodological tools that fostered interaction among diverse agents from the conception to the execution of the exhibitions’ proposals. In the process of composing this essay, we encounter successes, contradictions, and gaps, expanding perceptions that are fundamental to improving knowledge production and communication, as well as to supporting the kitchens in maintaining their own legitimate ways of producing culture.