From Useful Art to Service Design. Encouraging Migrants’ Creative Thinking through Translocal Services for Social Innovation

Abstract

From Useful Art to Service Design. Encouraging Migrants’ Creative Thinking Through Translocal Services for Social Innovation António Gorgel Pinto1(B ) and Paula Reaes Pinto2 1 UNIDCOM-IADE/Universidade Europeia, Lisbon, Portugal antonio.gorgel@universidadeeuropeia.pt 2 CHAIA/University of Évora, Évora, Portugal pmrp@uevora.pt Abstract. Exploring the areas of arte útil (useful art) and service design for social innovation, the research focuses on an art and design hybrid practice that can be understood as transdisciplinary. The social art projects and social design services pointed out as case studies aim to give practical and significant answers to the lack of support given by governmental entities, developing innovative experimental solutions that may contribute to the sociocultural sustainability and inclusion of migrant communities and citizens living in urban areas. The Immigrant Movement International, the Conflict Kitchen, and the Shifting Ground case studies have in common a systematized practice that seeks to enhance social, cultural, and political issues through a creative process to stimulate critical thinking in the new culture where the migrants aim to be integrated. Regarding the Shifting Ground, a common denominator is the relational and dialogical aesthetics crossing all the project iterations, the migrant citizens’ participation in ceramic workshops to encourage creative thinking, the production of ceramic sculptures later presented to the community at large in an exhibition-celebration, and the maintenance of an online archive to strengthen community bonds. The practice in question is also contextualized by Bell Hooks’ Eating the Other: Desire and Resistance, and Rancière’s critical art concept, to better understand the kind of relationship that may enhance interaction with m