Abstract

Artist Books, Graphic Diaries, Workjorns, Sketchbooks, Travel Diaries are places for annotations of action processes known as artistic tools for expressive recording of reflection. The Project “Cadernos Artivistas”, started in 2016, uses the potential of these easy-to-transport media and its advantages as a space for thinking, collecting, talking and creating, and reinventing it as a collaborative practice: joint creation, sharing of ideas, sharing of conversations and of a transdisciplinary notebook made up of many stories that claim a single story (as a poetic and metaphorical object). The notebooks began with an invitation to a large group of people (researchers, teachers, artists … from various countries) to form a working community and think of this idea along three axes:

1 – Pedagogical tool: Pedagogical scope – Didactics of the arts (as pedagogical instrument);

2 – Research tool: research tool;

3 – Tool of Action: Scope art and community: as a record of participants’ memories (local spaces, communities).

Later, in the beginning of 2017, in the cultural space of Quinta da Cruz, in Viseu, the coordinators of each community met for the first action, shared the developed notebooks and talked about their potential and future developments. The notebooks were displayed in a show that allowed the touch, the continuation of the notebooks and several workshops were carried out under its motto, with the surrounding community, allowing its enlargement. The stories were constantly reinvented, allowing to know an Other in his poetry and sensibility. The concepts of authorship were reflected and the collective work (made of several individuals) was valued. Many pertinent questions have been raised about action, collaboration, sharing, different forms of communication, affection education, networking … that are being registered and developed in order to create spaces / ties / communities for debate and action. This project continues in many countries (Brazil, Spain, Sao Tome, Portugal, Serbia, Mexico, Italy, Netherlands …), enhancing places of conversation, critical thinking and action.