First contact

In the topic of inclusivity activism and Intercomunities collaborations, I have started to build a relationship with the Organisation Metziners. Their objective is to help womxn and non-binary people that are drug users and suffer situations of vulneravility and violence. By covering their basic necessities and giving them a safe space where they can feel understood and supported. Founding pillars of self-confidence and independence on a peer to peer methodology, where the womxn express their necessities and even create workshops between them. 

After our first conversation, they told me that womxn are always recycling clothes and that my background in fashion would be interesting to organise a workshop since they had a great time doing something similar in the past. They usually perform a lot of creative activities and  have access to the internet  and a small library. They have some lockers for them to keep valuable things since many of them are living on the streets. The owner mentioned that they have a lot  of problems with the lockers because they break easily. 

Every Friday they organise a Paella all together. I will be going this Friday to get to know the womxn better and build trust with them to see if they would like to do any of the activities mentioned below.

1st ideas of possibilities of intervention: 

● Try to understand and fix the problem with the lockers?
● Contact the ceramic atelier next to them and organise a ceramic workshop around traditional ancient ceramic cooking tools to reinvent them and make them more accessible, from the womxn perspective. 
● Help them with technologies and computational skills?
● Create a swapping clothes market in el Raval, with the help of other organisations like Humana.
● Recycling-stylism clothing workshop and photoshooting.
● Collect food waste from the green pavilion to organise a Paella Madura.
● Organise a transversal workshop with Can batlló, about urban agriculture, doing a Calçotada, using the library…

It will depend on the womxn interests.
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Paella Friday by Metzineres

Since this is a safe space for them, my documentation on the process, for now, would be writing how did it go when I get back home.
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28 - 01 -2022
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Every Friday they organise a Paella lunch in the Agora el Raval, a communitarian space that after a lot of work, they are nowadays finally welcome. I got to know a bit more of the participants and they were welcoming and warm. 

At First, I was a bit shy and scared of giving the wrong impression of an outsider, I wondered if the clothes I was wearing would be appropriate for the occasion since I didn’t want to give too much the look of the privileged woman I am. Was funny to talk to Clara, a transwoman who is a makeup artist and was analysing my outfit as I said I’m a designer. I got really along with her and I hope I can see her more often because she told me that it's not usually going there anymore. I asked if she was imparting make-up workshops to the rest: to which she replied they won't pay me enough for what I’m worth. 

I tried to participate in paella making but since I’m not an expert and didn’t want to ruin it I was just following orders. Aida told me about another okupa place where they organise a flamenco show on sunday, I didn't think I would have time to go but I was really happy she invited me. Their main problem is usually housing. They don’t have a place to stay and many of them are sleeping on the streets. The conversation tackled the topic of rape and sexual abuse many times. They don't have a safe space to go and usually are not welcome because of their gender expression. Even though they are suffering a difficult life, they have great humour and they were dancing and singing. Was a good sunny day, a man was playing the piano and many of us mentioned how good he was and how we recognized some of the songs. I didn’t have the chance to talk about my ideas for ceramics workshops with them but I felt it wasn’t the moment. Ursula is a project technician that started as a participant and now she works for Metziners. She is a great example for the rest and manages the situation very well. 
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Talking with Ari also opened my eyes and I have realised that any kind of possible intervention is gonna take some time. They are very open to ideas and want to have an outside impact when a workshop or performance is done. It’s very important to give them visibility and help remove the stigma around these communities. Aura, the owner of the place, wants to build strong relationships with designers and see how we can design new systems of collaboration that will sustain in time. Consistency and commitment to causes are key aspects to have into account.

What if we could create a better system for them to communicate about safe spaces to sleep?
A sense of belonging is also very important, they were proudly talking about them as a family. Design with them and not for them. They want to go a step further than mere assistance and help with visibility and activism in this sense.
I want to ask them more questions about their housing situations, work, jobs, and love life are key aspects. It’s so fucked up, that some want to take hormones but they will lose sexual appetite. 
At agora, there is also a space to work on the huerto urbano they have and they will be there tomorrow from 15:50.
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Why is this important for me? Can this be part of my project or would it just be volunteer work?
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Reflection on the process

I have decided to continue going every Friday if possible to the Paella. I’m not sure if I would be able to incorporate this social interaction into my future project but I want to keep exploring the possibilities of it. As I’ve talked with Guillem during the reviews, the social agent is going to be something to add in the 3rd Term, but still, I will need time to find the connections. Building trust with this community as I’ve mentioned would take time, but starting with some commitment is the best way I’ve found to figure it out. 
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04 - 02 - 2022

Today was a grey day in Barcelona and you could sense it in everyone's mood. I didn't manage to arrive at lunchtime since I had a personal meeting, so this time I decided to not arrive with empty hands and bring some chocolate for the gxrls as dessert. It was already 16:30 and I was expecting them to be done with lunch by then. Turned out that Úrsula was sick today and the organisation was conspicuous by its absence. I was missing some familiar faces (like Clara’s) from last week but it didn’t interfere with my relationship. It made me realise that even though there were a lot of people last time, there are even more that are co-depending on this association.
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Ikar was there last Friday, and immediately welcomed me with a smile and offered me a place to sit. I wasn’t at my best today and Ikar noticed it. Curiously, I thought I’m the one going there to help but today they were more helpful to me. We simply talked about life, boys and family. We complained about Cis men and how bad they have treated them. There is a big fetish around trans people and they were telling me how many times they have had to protect themselves from these irresponsibly, emotional threads cis men build with them. Noa was talking about Thailand and how some of the operations they’ve received didn’t turn out well. I didn’t want to ask more questions, but it kept me thinking about how risky this surgery could be and how political these situations are as well. Úrsula appeared with some gifts for Noa. It was a big bag full of Naruto’s comics for her kids! She was so happy about it, she was concerned about the education of her kids and was so happy to have something to make them motivated about reading. I’m a bit confused about her kids, but again I didn’t dare to ask. I simply go there and listen and talk just when I feel it would be well received. She told me they are living in Zona Franca and I think it might be an okupa place.

Finally, Clara appeared with a grim face but since I was in the same mood I decided to go and talk to her. We talked for a while, she was having some trouble with her mom and a friend. She repeatedly commented how fed up she is with her situation. How much she wishes economical independence and how misunderstood she feels. I have to say that I wasn’t at my greatest to offer her advice or cheer her up, but I think that sometimes one just needs to be listened to and feel accompanied. 

Water Bioremediation

What if we could filter polluted water with marine organisms?
What if we find other purposes for living sea organism that is no longer seafood?
What if an inter-spices collaboration would solve what humans have damaged?


For this intervention, I have teamed up with Paula, Marina, some Oysters and Mussels.
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We first collected some water from the port of Barcelona expecting it to be very polluted by the oil from all the boats and yachts anchored. According to the reference project, you could see the difference physically because the water was polluted and after a while, the water turned clear thanks to the mussels filtration. In our case, the water we collected was already clear and did seem not polluted. 

Nitrate Levels color test

pH Levels color test

Conclusion

Which made us think about the ethical side of this experiment since for me the interesting approach of this was the inter-species collaboration. I would like to work with biomaterials in terms of living beings and not so much with the waste or the shells in this case. But as a group is good that we have different approaches and could work on how to close the loop of this system. 
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What if we work with mussels and oysters to bio-remediate and also use their shells for biomaterials when their lifespan has reached its end? 
What if in a further stage of the project we could use biomaterials structures made out of the shells to carry out the process? 
What if the shells could be used as a substrate for harvesting the shellfish?