1. Introduction

The Mirada de Barrio (View From the Neighbourhood) project was an intervention developed by the Museo de la Solidaridad Salvador Allende (MSSA) between 2017 and 2019. It aimed to establish a new link between the museum and the neighbourhood where it is located: the República neighbourhood in Santiago de Chile. Entitled Curation and Participatory Enhancement Between the Barrio República and the Museo de la Solidaridad Salvador Allende, the project’s main goal was to develop a participatory process that would culminate in an exhibition of works from the museum’s collection, and whose curation would be entrusted to the neighbourhood’s residents. The project was funded by the Culture Funds of the National Council of Culture and the Arts.

The Mirada de Barrio project, and the sequence of actions stemming from it up to 2021, have just been the subject of an important publication by the MSSA. The book under the title Mirada de Barrio. Arte y Participación Colectiva para Imaginar Territorios y Comunidades (Mirada de Barrio. Art and Collective Participation to Imagine Territories and Communities; ^{Martínez et al., 2022}) includes a critical synthesis of the process and a detailed account of the activities developed during the period of action. This work provides essential background material for this article, complementing the experience of one of the authors, who was part of the project intervention team.

The intervention activated by the Mirada de Barrio project represents a novelty in contemporary Chile’s artistic mediation landscape and museums (^{Peters, 2021}). Although participation and interaction with audiences seem to be part of the agenda for cultural institutions developing artistic mediation practices (^{Morgado, 2018}), it is somewhat unusual for Chile’s national reality to prioritise interaction with territories. Hence the focus on its analysis and understanding.

Nevertheless, the interpretation proposed here does not focus on artistic mediation per se but rather on its territorial repercussions. In other words, we focus on the modalities of territory production inherent to all actions implemented within the scope of the Mirada de Barrio project. In this way, we seek to contribute to a discussion that often overlooks the fact that territory is also a sensitive reality and that, consequently, it is important to include it among the focuses of observation of artistic mediation since it expresses one of its most powerful effects. Our enquiry assumes that the project aimed to impact the neighbourhood (representing a territorial effect in itself). However, it could not identify all the dimensions or components of this territorial effect. That is why the analysis presented here may be relevant. Thus, it is worth noting that our analysis does not aim to encompass the entire intervention process but rather its territorial dimension in light of the particular conceptualisation we propose here.

The paper includes six sections. The first provides information about the República neighbourhood, the MSSA and the Mirada de Barrio project. The second section explains our methodology. The third and fourth sections address the theoretical elements underpinning our study, focusing on the intervention developed by the Mirada de Barrio project as a attachment device and on the analytical perspectives of territory. The fifth section analyses a selection of three project milestones: the research, the meetings and the exhibition, which will be addressed from the perspective of the territorial gestures involved in the intervention. Finally, the sixth section elaborates on the conclusions of our study, addressing the implications and learnings our work might provide for artistic mediation.

2. A Neighbourhood, a Museum, a Project

To begin our contextualisation, we must address the first territorial unit where the project under analysis will be implemented: the neighbourhood. In introducing this notion, it is important to explain that a neighbourhood is not an administrative category in Chile. Thus, although it is common in everyday and institutional language, the use of this designation stems from usage and convention, sometimes to become an organisational tool in municipalities. Such is the case of the municipality of Santiago, which has divided its territory based on neighbourhoods recognised in everyday use. One of these is the República neighbourhood, the location of the MSSA.

The República neighbourhood emerged in the late 19th century, when the then mayor of Santiago, Benjamín Vicuña Mackenna, decided to build a new neighbourhood for the wealthier families and built magnificent mansions and villas in different architectural styles. Vicuña Mackenna himself named the neighbourhood’s streets after important foreign figures who contributed to Chile’s development in politics, science and architecture. Closely related to this origin, in November 1992, the National Monuments Council declared three sectors of the neighbourhood as “zona tipica” (typical area): (a) the mansions of República avenue, located between Sazie and Gay streets; (b) Pasaje República, corner with General García; and (c) the Conjunto Virginia Opazo. This initiative was instrumental in creating the image of a historical neighbourhood for its inhabitants and the outside world (^{Zúñiga, 2017}, p. 96).

Regarding its demographic composition, the 2002 census reported that the República neighbourhood was home to approximately 6,048 inhabitants, 3,120 women and 2,928 men, with an age range between 20-44, which indicates that a large percentage of the sector’s population are young people or young adults, a reality associated with its status as a university area, and also with the emergence of buildings for young families. Updating and detailing some of the characteristics of this demographic composition, the study Evolución del Barrio Universitario de Santiago Como Campus Urbano Abierto: Desafíos y Oportunidades (Evolution of the Santiago University Neighbourhood as an Open Urban Campus: Challenges and Opportunities) by Gustavo ^{Munizaga (2008}), states that in the approximately 400 hectares that make up the structure of the neighbourhood, a residential population of 25,640 people coexists with a population of 60,000 students. It should also be noted that the República neighbourhood is home to an important diversity of inhabitants (students, workers, immigrants, etc.) and social, economic and educational institutions (mostly higher education institutions, institutes and universities) that characterise life in the neighbourhood.

As for the museum, the MSSA’s origins date back to the early 1970s. During the Unidad Popular government, the idea of creating a museum for the people of Chile emerged through the solidarity donation of works by artists from Europe and the

Americas. As ^{Zaldívar (2022}) points out,

the essence that its founders wanted to give it was different from the traditional conception of a museum. They sought to abandon the elitist position typical of hegemonic culture by bringing the plastic arts closer to the Latin American people, in a dynamic, lively manner, with cultural and educational purposes, of full democratic accessibility. (p. 9)

Soon after the coup of September 11, 1973, the MSSA suffered various forms of censorship and persecution and was forced to store the collection in private spaces, concealed and clandestine. In fact, the museum addresses the stages of “solidarity” (1971-1973) and “resistance” (1976-1990). With the return of democracy, the MSSA was reconfigured, settling in various places in Santiago until 2005, when it settled permanently in the Heiremans Palace in the República neighbourhood of Santiago.

The MSSA is located in this neighbourhood, although it is not a neighbourhood museum. Its collection includes works by internationally renowned artists such as Joan Miró, Alexander Calder, Frank Stella, Joaquín Torres-García, and Lygia Clark, among others. Its very name reflects a historical connection with a political project that persists. “Visitors to the museum usually believe that the space is dedicated to his (President Salvador Allende) memory, and are very surprised to see rooms filled with international works of modern and contemporary art” (^{García, 2022}, p. 19).

This discrepancy between the museum and the territory where it is located, the neighbourhood, is one of the elements that triggered the origin of the Mirada de Barrio project. They sought to address this gap by revisiting one of the fundamental mottoes of the museum’s initial stage: “to be at the service of its people”. This purpose

has recently resonated in the management and internal considerations of the museum team, prompting questions about how to unlock the museum’s heritage (its collection), how to connect the experiences and insights of the works, and how to interact fluidly with its surroundings and be part of the lives of Santiago’s inhabitants. (^{García, 2017}, p. 26)

According to the form presented to the tender funds of the National Council of Culture and Arts of Chile, the Mirada de Barrio project was a research-action and a participatory curation seeking to rescue the accounts, experiences and stories of residents who form the intangible heritage of Barrio República. Moreover, how it relates to the artistic and symbolic heritage of the Museo de la Solidaridad Salvador Allende.

The perspective that inspired the proposal was a faithful reflection of the debates in contemporary museology: “the ideal expression of the new paradigm is a museum that genuinely opens its narrative to obtain a content co-created from the relationship with its users” (Meijer-van Mensch, 2009, as cited in ^{Bastidas & Vargas, 2012}, p. 13).

Participatory curation and the various modalities of research-action in the museological field (^{Arrieta, 2008}; ^{Bennett, 2005}; ^{Pinochet, 2016}) are based on the assumption that the intervention of artistic programmes and local cultural spaces activates processes of neighbourhood revitalisation and generates new synergies between them and their community (^{Peters, 2021}). Museums can transform how a neighbourhood or territory’s cultural heritage and memories are produced and activated.

As ^{Bastidas and Vargas (2012}) point out,

the true essence sought in contemporaneity, [is] the museum [that] lives for its publics, co-creates its scripts, is no longer the holder of a hegemonic truth, but rather that becomes a space of communication and relationships ( … ) the museum now cares about including its publics in all aspects ( ... ) until it truly becomes an agent of inclusion and social change. (p. 14)

Furthermore, the work of these authors is a faithful reflection of the relevance that the search for methodologies enabling a virtuous articulation between museums and their communities has recently acquired, without underestimating the complexity involved in this relationship.

Essentially, the Mirada de Barrio project sought to generate a link between the museum, the community and the territory through research, action, participation and curation.

The project was planned in three stages. The first involved researching and systematising the historical and cultural value of the República neighbourhood and the Heiremans Palace (the building that houses the MSSA). At this stage, the mediation strategies for participatory curation were adjusted, and the work of dissemination with the neighbourhood’s residents was initiated. A survey was also conducted in the neighbourhood to learn about local people’s perceptions of the museum. During the second stage, talks with residents were held inside and outside the museum, aimed at recognising and identifying the neighbourhood’s tangible and intangible heritage. This stage initiated the participatory valuation of these heritages and the MSSA’s art collection. An audiovisual record was also made to systematise the research process and the participation of people living in the neighbourhood (presented in a documentary in the final exhibition). The third stage, funded with MSSA’s resources and scheduled for April 2018, included a three-month exhibition on its premises where the research findings, the curatorial work among the neighbours and the MSSA Public Area team, and the mediation programmes planned specifically for the project were presented.

3. Methodology

As previously mentioned, one of researchers participated in the formulation of the Mirada de Barrio project and then joined as a methodological advisor during its two-year duration. We approached this author’s experience collaboratively using the tools of systematisation of experiences and self-ethnography.

Regarding the first, we understand it as a process aimed to “understand the meaning and logic of the complex process an experience entails, to extract learning. It aims to understand why this process is developing or has developed in a certain way, critically interpreting what has been done and achieved” (^{Chávez-Tafur, 2006}, p. 10). The relevance of this methodology makes it possible to visualise, from a critical point of view, and pointing the rights and wrongs, the significant experiences, even if they were small-scale and local (^{Ortega et al., 2009}). Thus, systematisation is a tool that provides alternatives and original ways to respond to a problem rather than pursuing known strategies or the so-called “incrementalism” mentioned by ^{Pelfini (2007}).

Systematisation aims to document and systematise practices so that lessons can be learned. It involves using various materials and procedures, such as documentation, archives and participant interviews. In this case, we resorted to the documents that the participant author had available (work notebook, emails, administrative reports) and, as we said in the introduction, to the book Mirada de Barrio. Arte y Participación Colectiva para Imaginar Territórios y Comunidades (^{Martínez et al., 2022}). Among other valuable elements, this book includes a complete record book of all the actions carried out within the project and beyond, from 2020 to 2021, and notes of all the weeks and months of development, which makes it precious material for our systematisation.

The material was examined from the experience of the author-participant and through a dialogue with this paper’s co-authors. Accordingly, we drew on tools from both self-ethnography (^{Blanco, 2012a}, ^2012b) and collaborative ethnography (^{Herrera Bautista et al., 2021}). Regarding self-ethnography, we recover some of its central elements: understanding that the researcher himself is part of the study and that it is a narrative way of generating knowledge. Concerning collaborative ethnography, our dialogue focused on addressing the “technical-practical dimension” (^{Herrera Bautista et al., 2021}) of the experience developed by the author-participant as a triangulation strategy.

We believe that the methodological procedure developed enables us to assess the performance of the MSSA team, the behaviours of the neighbourhood residents and the territorial effects of the project, with the virtues and defects of the tools mentioned, and with the awareness that our reference material does not represent an impact assessment of the project developed, as has been done in Chile on other interventions (^{Ossandón et al., 2019}).

4. Attachment Device

To account for the intervention conducted within the Mirada de Barrio project, we consider it pertinent to resort the discussion proposed elsewhere (^{Campos & Dupré, 2021}). There we propose to understand the intervention device as a heterogeneous and dynamic group of mediators who seek to generate a transformation in the dispositions of the subjects and populations on which they intervene, particularly about how they perceive, conceive, and emotionally attach to their neighbourhoods (^{Campos & Dupré, 2021}, p. 286). According to ^{Foucault (2001}), the device refers to a heterogeneous network of elements intertwined in power relations and including a wide range of elements, such as “discourses, institutions, architectural arrangements, regulations, laws, administrative measures, scientifc statements, philosophic propositions, morality, philanthropy” (p. 299). For the sake of our argumentation, we attenuate the focus on disciplining and governmentality, typical of this author’s notion of the device, and emphasise three characteristics, following García’s proposal (^{Fanlo, 2011}). Firstly, a device articulates discursive and non-discursive elements (normative, institutional, and practical); secondly, it seeks to guide the individuals’ behaviours; and thirdly, it operates through the intervention of spaces, which has effects on territory and people.

Furthermore, we believe the emphasis on the attachment is relevant since the change intended to generate in the subjects refers, fundamentally, to their dispositions to perceive, conceive and emotionally connect with the neighbourhood: we seek to transform it into a territory of affections and not to linger on the idea of a Cartesian space but to move forward in a conception that is “far beyond the material and the tangible” (^{Aubán, 2017}, p. 77).

It would be useful to evoke here the theory of attachment developed by ^{Hennion (2005}, ²⁰¹³) and ^{Gomart and Hennion (1999}) for the study of taste in the cultural sphere since its focus is on the configuration of a “taste”, a “love for”, a “fondness” and an “attachment” (^{Berroeta et al., 2017}). The French word attachement combines those meanings and is the cornerstone of Hennion’s conceptualisation.

Within this author’s perspective, the production of taste - and any attachment - involves multiple and diverse mediators, among which it is worth mentioning human beings, but also institutions, collectivities and objects, whose ability to act is recognised (^{Hennion, 2013}, p. 7).

So, it seems appropriate to understand the intervention developed by Mirada de Barrio as a device of attachment insofar as it seeks to create a new link between the neighbourhood and the museum through a series of recursive actions on the neighbourhood’s residents to generate a new territory progressively.

5. Sensitive Territory. Three Analytical Perspectives on the Notion of Territory

We say “a new territory” because, in line with ^{Deleuze and Guattari (1980}), we argue that it is established by the emergence (and through it) of forms of expression: “it is the emergence of materials of expression (qualities) that will define territory” (p. 387) and that its production is directly related to the emergence of sensitive indicators: the territory is essentially characterised by “indicators”, and these indicators “are taken from components of all kinds of origins” (^{Deleuze & Guattari, 1980}, pp. 386-387). From these authors’ perspective, territory behaves as a bundle of sensitive qualities that can shape the inhabited environment and the occupants of that environment.

Besides the character and variety of the elements that influence the production of the territory, its complexity stands out. The dynamism of these elements highlights the historical condition of the territory. However, the above should not make us lose sight of the fact that territory is the product of “thousands and thousands of systems of relations that go on weaving a network of fragile balances that can be dissolved at any moment” (^{Aubán, 2017}, p. 79).

This conceptualisation of territory suggests that its very essence is sensitive, emotional, and affecting. However, its behavioural dynamic is not perceived in it. At this point, it is worth using the synthesis proposed by ^{Arzeno (2018}), who states that the notion of territory has been approached in three main forms: as a force field, as an appropriated space and as a manifold experience.

As a force field, territory refers to the “space projections of certain social relations” (^{Arzeno, 2018}, p. 7) that are directly related to power relations. Relations that define, delimit and qualify the space. As such, it should be noted that ^{Simmel (1908/2014}), in his analysis of the dialectics between space and society, had stated that “the boundary is not a spatial fact with sociological effects, but a sociological fact with a spatial form”. However, “when it became a spatial and sensitive product, into something that we draw in nature irrespective of its sociological and practical significance, this exerts a retroactive influence on the consciousness of the relationship between the parties” (^{Simmel, 1908/2014}, p. 552).

As appropriated space, the conceptualisation of territory “emphasises the appropriation of space by a particular group and the identity constructed in this appropriation and towards an ‘other’, usually through conflict” (^{Arzeno, 2018}, p. 8).

Finally, for the conceptualisation of territory as a manifold experience, Arzeno

(2018) draws fundamentally on Haesbaert and states that

unlike the previous conception, which emphasises the dimension of a group’s appropriation of space, [what is worth highlighting here is that] every territory is, at the same time and to a different extent, the object of appropriation and/or domination to a different degree by different groups. (p. 9)

This means that multiple territories and powers usually coexist in the same space; this is how multi-territoriality is expressed. Thus, it is important to highlight that territoriality refers to “an individual or group’s attempt to affect, influence or control people, phenomena and relations by delimiting and asserting control over a geographical area. This area will be called territory” (^{Haesbaert, 2011}, p. 74).

Following the above, it is possible to resume the focus of our text, namely, to measure the territorial effects of the Mirada de Barrio project’s intervention. Based on the previous statements about the attachment device and the conceptualisation of the territory we reviewed, it is possible to identify the territorial consequences involved in the project’s operations. The next section addresses this topic.

6. Analysis: Recursive and Multiform Intervention

Our analysis will focus on the period during which the project was set to be executed, 2017-2019, particularly how the stages outlined in the original proposal materialised. As previously mentioned, the project was planned in three stages: the first, for researching and systematising information about the neighbourhood, featuring a survey within the neighbourhood; the second, for developing meetings with the neighbourhood residents, inside and outside the museum, to recognise and identify the neighbourhood’s tangible and intangible heritage; and the third, for the participatory exhibition. In order to simplify our account, we will refer to these three stages as “research”, “meetings” and “exhibition”. We will analyse each one through the lenses offered by the attachment device. Following the above, the approach to these three stages aims to identify their territorial effects.

7. Conclusions

The Mirada de Barrio project questioned how the MSSA related to its community and territory and did so in line with the debates in contemporary museology, which aspire to open museum narratives to the co-construction with their users (^{Bastidas & Vargas, 2012}). By implementing this particular participatory curation, the MSSA introduced to the neighbourhood a conception of culture much closer to everyday life and practical experimentation of the territory much closer to the subjective experience of the residents.

Through the direct link with the territory, the community, and the neighbourhood, Mirada de Barrio unveils the co-productive and creative processes of cultural practice, incorporating the historical processes that have been part of the creation of both the neighbourhood and the MSSA.

This paper addressed the territory’s production modalities in the actions implemented within the Mirada de Barrio project. Our goal was to contribute to an element generally forgotten in the considerations about artistic mediation, such as the fact that territory is a sensitive reality whose production takes multiple forms.

In our analysis, we resorted to the figure of the “territorial gesture” recovering approaches made elsewhere (^{Silva et al., 2020}). We stated that gestures are usually associated with non-verbal communication materialised through corporeality or movement. However, it is auspicious to consider them beyond human corporeality, a practical orientation towards an objective or goal:

gestures connect bodies and also objects, and can affect us by encountering and transmitting this meaning and symbolism [but can] go beyond the gesture contained in the human agent ( … ) gestures are not limited to their humanity, they can exist in the flow between human and non-human components. (^{Silva et al., 2020}, pp. 130-131)

The concept of “territorial gesture” proved fruitful from an analytical point of view to highlight the territory’s action capacity and the need to actively and consciously consider its role in the processes activated in the Mirada de Barrio project. It also allowed us to highlight the capacity to produce territory that any action has, however microscopic it may be. The denomination “territorial gesture” effectively accounts for the affective and affecting dynamics inherent in the conceptualisation of territory that we have outlined here.

In fact, the gestures of openness and withdrawal are useful to account for the recursive character of any mediation dynamics and to show how the territories enter and, in a certain way, are “embodied” by the intervention teams. This stands out in the MSSA team’s feeling of confidence after the survey application. It is also apparent in the changes to the exhibition’s initial proposal included in the project when the MSSA team, after the fourth meeting, decides to work with materials produced by the neighbourhood residents. We believe this is a lesson worth considering in contemporary debates on artistic mediation.

The gestures of openness and withdrawal are also relevant to understanding the forces and magnitudes operating in the territory and the multiple dynamics of appropriation involved in shaping the neighbourhood experience. Appropriation is always a process (^{Campos & Soto, 2016}) and is never fully resolved. There are always processes of de-appropriation and re-appropriation activated by sometimes very subtle forms of affecting (like visiting a house or retrieving a forgotten object), which trigger a new way of connecting ourselves to the territory. The participatory curation of Mirada de Barrio reminds us that the social topology of the neighbourhood and its logic of delimitation and planning are based on affective dynamics, sometimes in a state of latency.

Moreover, it seems that this delimitation and planning reflect forms of collective recognition that can be shaken (modified) by an exercise of memory and dialogue, allowing the acquaintance of others and their experiences also inscribed in the neighbourhood. In their reiteration, these dialogues and memory exercises may become powerful producers of community: a community of affections and affects.

Therefore, it is plausible to consider territorial gestures as useful tools for understanding how a collectivity - such as that formed by the neighbourhood residents during the Mirada de Barrio project - can be extended or downsized, expanded or shrunk. That involves recognising the territory’s manifold experiences, legitimacy, value and ability to participate in the production of the common.

The Mirada de Barrio project provides an example of much of the contemporary debates in the field of museology and artistic mediation. The lessons we have systematised and reflected upon here allow us to consider the relevance and usefulness of these disciplinary fields to understand that their practices are always territorially situated, which means that they intervene on sensitive, affective, relational and memorial coordinates (to mention only some of those addressed here).

Territorial gestures addressed at the neighbourhood scale can contribute to discussions on museology and artistic mediation on at least three levels: first, regarding the centrality exerted by the trust built upon in establishing an affective regime favourable to cooperation and the positive valuation of the neighbourhood territory; second, that the forms of appropriation are multiform and that, in this type of interventions, they take on microscopic forms with strong subjective involvement; third, that by redefining the modes of cooperation, new practices of territorial appropriation are also triggered; fourth, that the affective involvement and the activation of cooperation entail the establishment of a high expectation of participation, which stands against the forms of manipulation and is set very close to the citizen control that defines what is valuable and what is common.