Social Artifact: Sueños/Agradecimientos/Palabras

For the second consecutive year, Artefacto Social took on the challenge of opening a space for counter-disciplinary research and launching an experience of collective creation, with the aim of aiming for social transformation in the same communities or territories in which we had been working during the year 2021. After a deep contact, the commitment to the issues addressed had permeated the ethical structure of the project and there was a strong willingness to continue working in any circumstance, asking ourselves what were the walls that needed to be broken down in order to establish connections through emotions and empathy.

In this second edition, Artefacto Social put special emphasis on the relationships with the people who make up each of the communities of Los Asperones, La Palma-Palmilla and El Palo, which we had been approaching since the beginning. In this spirit, our team continued the journey within the Key Project programme of the Vice-Rectorate for Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship of the University of Malaga, support which this time was joined by the Department of Art and Architecture.

As a link between the two editions, it was crucial to review the values that held us together, drawing up a brief manifesto, where we brought together values and purposes, and a decalogue, which was formulated in the form of a questionnaire because we understood that it was better to maintain critical capacity than to be clear about things. With all this, we took decisive steps towards the design of the project's identity and the construction of a corporate visual identity. This process would be of great value in consolidating the team and facilitating the incorporation of new people who would add their commitment.

Looking back at the end of the 2022 edition, we have confirmed that if we aim at social transformation we must start by developing strategies of empathy with the individuals that make up our society. In this sense, if we intend to build a society committed to all its parts, the relevance of education in all its spheres and levels, from childhood to university, is indisputable. And here, the disruptive practices of art and its capacity to promote divergent thinking can find their maximum aspiration. With this will, we have once again taken the university out into the street, in an act of devolution that connects realities that should never be separated. And for this important task we have continued to rely on cooperative work, encouraging learning based on dialogue and companionship, approaching social impact from direct exchange, from an inclusive perspective that understands diversity as a richness and not as a burden.

A commitment to the present and the future in which art is the tool for raising the awareness of a community that wants to change its world. And for this ambitious feat, we are still missing a lot of street.