Legacies

With virtual itineraries in the neighbourhood we explored the historical evolution of space. We printed historical photographs in order to travel in time. We compared the social life in the past with nowadays looking at those elements that endured versus those that disappeared.

We compared absences, permanencies and transformations in the public space and in the urban life. We discovered that what was felt as absence were mainly bakeries and food stores, including local and regional food products, specific professions based on a self-sustainable and family economy, craftsmanship and social neighboring cooperative structures, and a diversified local family commerce, storehouses and local industry, theatres and cinemas. Prostitution guest houses and hostess bars, were remembered with a sense of nostalgia. For them it was experienced as a normal part of the neighborhood life. Relevant permanencies were dairy shops and some taverns and restaurants including public fountains and the washing tanks in Rosa square, still in use at the moment of the Lab. The participants chose photos related to life-stories and life experiences and key-words that could link their memories to urban places. Those images selected were chosen in the decade of 1960’s, the period where most of the participants arrived to the neighborhood. Those views selected depict main public spaces around Martim Moniz, Intendente and Olarias square, which were, in the past, main economic and social centers. The keywords associated to these spaces tell us that there is an equitable balance between what is felt as absence and what is still permanent in the neighborhood. There is also an awareness of the existence of a new multicultural environment that is valued and experienced as a positive drive for the neighborhood. However, the participants had a sense of loss of the cooperative and comradeship way of life of the past. 

We also explored their inner subjective world, asking them to take part and play in two board games designed by the researcher: a “Memory Game ” and a “Game of the Neighborhood”. The first game has the format of cards that work with the five senses and it was designed to facilitate the conversation and dialogue among participants in a cumulative storytelling of synesthetic sensory memories. A smell took us to an image, which transported us to a taste, which directed us to a tactile sensation, which made us remember a sound or some words that were expressed in that specific situation. As we played, we used a cartography of Mouraria to locate the places where those memories and multisensory experiences took place. The second game was designed following the tradition of nineteenth century educational games of geographical exploration. The board game represents the labyrinth of streets in Mouraria’s neighborhood with its stairs, public spaces, public transportation and emblematic buildings, where participants could meet simultaneously with the past and present of its public spaces (its neighbors, traditions, rituals and leisure, commerce, gastronomy, migration, tourism, and public spaces). The participants travelled around Mouraria to meet their neighbors, their festivities, the commerce, gastronomy, migrants and tourists.

 The majority of the sensorial and synesthetic memories were integrating the visual, hearing, smelling and action memories. Those related with sounds spoke about children playing in the streets, ambulant commerce or the discussions between neighbors in the streets. Smells were related to coffee factories, street food vendors, grocery and fish shops, small restaurants and bakeries.

In this stage the participants chose five personal memories and they were asked to represent them into photomontage compositions that explain the multisensorial experience of urban places. Each photomontage composition situates characters, actions, sensations and feelings in a specific location. At this stage, participants chose five historical photographs of places in the neighborhood that evoke a story from their past and we asked them to write down the elements and components of their stories: characters, actions, sensations, feelings. Once the stories were obtained, we carried out a work of composition and photomontage to visually explain a multi-sensory experience from the past, which was later edited in a small book that included the transcription of all the narrated stories. This booklet was offered to participants at the end of the laboratory.

From thirty six different collages created by the participants we observed that there is a balance between stories related to the sense of vision, smell and sound, and a smaller amount with the sense of taste and touch. A proportion of 30% of the memories correspond to an active participation of the body in space through movement, implying the transformation of space due to that specific action. Words are as important in the recalling of a memory as the memory related to the sense of sound, vision or smell. The majority of memories related to actions talk about encounters with the community (body performances in space, confrontations and responses, displacements and movements; gatherings, meetings and encounters; or the creation of works of art). From the thirty six stories, 70% of them contain a memory of joy, pleasure, faith, fun, pride, comradeship and nostalgia; and the rest contain a memory of fear, grief, distress, sorrow, poverty and scarcity. Therefore, in Mouraria, the past carries an optimistic evocation.