Laura Castro Romero

Can a space provide the foundations for marginalized communities to reaffirm their power and value, challenge dominant systems, and guarantee their well-being through the production of new, inclusive, pluralist knowledge? This project proposes the creation of spaces that do exactly that: challenge the current socio-economic and political systems that govern Colombia to empower marginalized groups, disadvantaged by the nation’s intersecting problems. In a low-income neighborhood in the south of Bogotá, the espacio alternativo rises as a civic space in Pinares Park. Here, collaborative knowledge production is encouraged by providing a neutral, resourceful, creative, and appealing place for people of different backgrounds and with different types of knowledge to gather and determine the issues they need to address. At espacio alternativo, the community can share and present proposals and challenges, evaluate strategies and goals, and test them to prove them as viable, sustainable solutions. Through this process, the espacio alternativo guides the community toward the conceptualization of more inclusive and sustainable futures where their well-being is guaranteed by their own power and cohesion as a community as opposed to the oppressive systems that have neglected them and marginalized them.