The idea of establishing a permanent experimental laboratory exploring the collective conception of urban space is one of the pillars of the Factoría project.
In a global setting shaped by profound socio-economic transformations and by the advent of the so-called information society, the task of the artist moves towards the selection, conjunction and diffusion of aesthetic and conceptual content, towards the materialization of heterogeneous interdisciplinary initiatives which blend different registers and levels of interpretation.
In consequence, an urban project is no longer a disjointed topography born of the labour of isolated disciplines but rather the sum total of the work of artists, urban developers, architects, stage designers, anthropologists, historians...and of the citizens themselves, understanding the city as a collective project under permanent development that transcends the individual and the circumstantial, shaping environments which hybridize the local with the global.
The function of this UrbanLab is to become a transmitter and an amplifier of the city’s interests, considering its historical connotations and its privileged situation from a broad and diverse perspective. Its purpose is to generate a dialogue which stimulates the citizens’ critical conscience in relation to their environment, leading to reflection on the ways that we can experience urban reality—the construction of which is the work of everyone—and to formulate questions about new challenges. The adaptation to digital processes and tools, the transformation of the means of transport and communication, the urgent need to promote sustainable development and the redefining of our capacity for new connections and perspectives are, without a doubt, topics which cannot be overlooked in the contemporary discourse.
Art, science and technology—emotion, knowledge and imagination—form the foundation of this collective investigation.
