Considering what Henri Lefebvre calls the “rhythmic character of the city”, we should heed the noises and voices of public space as unique expressions of Southern European spirit, through disruptive movements including Spain’s 15M, Greek and Italian street protests in 2011 and the Taksim Square and Gezi Park occupations in Istanbul. Movements which emerged rapidly and seemed ephemeral from outside reveal themselves to be widespread over local contexts. What once was underground has become commonplace, accepted: urban gardens, self-managed social centers, open schools, fablabs, squats, active urban squares, hacklabs, medialabs, makerspaces, connected by scores of networks.
We’re calling this Southern European phenomenon “P2P Plazas”: places where bottom-up initiatives connect actions among peers (citizens)
‘P2P Plazas: a Southern European Network’ is an ongoing research that aims to produce a cartography of this practices that are actually reshaping public space and cultural production and intervention. The workshop we suggest for CommonsFest15 calls the attention of the Greek community to help building a wider cartography of this experiences and collectives in Greece. The data collected will be published back in in open source formats for usability and replicability.

Organiser: Carmen Lozano Bright
Read more: http://p2p-plazas.tumblr.com/