The second workshop aimed to visualise how each defined of the terms was interconnected with one another, based on our sensed experiences while walking through the city for the last 3 days. Thus resulting in a complex web of meanings as opposed to a list when thinking about a glossary that better represents our perception and mode of being in an urban setting. Participants first received a manual prepared by Crossmopollinate, which contained a list of all the words and their definitions generated during the previous workshop. This manual served as a foundation for constructing the web.
Using this list as a starting point, participants expanded the web by adding layers of signification through discussions related to the key themes of the Heidelberg excursion and their individual research interests relevant to Urban Transformation. To facilitate this visual representation, participants were provided with craft supplies such as paper charts, markers, glue, colored paper, and scissors. These tools allowed them to translate abstract concepts explored in the workshops and during the excursion into tangible visual elements within the space. As participants began to visualise these terms in their contexts, three-dimensional models emerged, adding spatial, temporal, and experiential meanings to terms and concepts. As the discussions proceeded, the terms began to be recontextualised within diverse lexical and geographical fields. For example, the term ‘knowledge’ in the context of these three cities, Heidelberg, Delhi, and Kathmandu, meant different things.
In the context of Heidelberg, we engaged in the conversation concerning the city’s identity, particularly in light of its self-designation as a ‘knowledge pearl.’ Our discussion revolved around the mechanisms that have contributed to the political and economic contours of the city. It was apparent that the educational institutions and the demographic shifts associated with the influx of students and scholars were some of the most pivotal in the shaping of this university city. As we were considering other catalysts in how the city wishes to curate its own identity, the emphasis in wishing to appeal to itself as a romantic medieval city, seemed also to be a reactive maneuver in making itself attractive to the lens of the tourists. Other memory and knowledge-making were also in play through multiple smaller communities. This became more evident while revisiting the old city through the history of the brutality of the Nazi regime through a personal guided tour by a member of the Stumbling Stones (Stolpersteine, commemorative bronze plaques) committee on these counter-memorials, placed in between the streets of University Square and the streets in the former residential homes of the Jewish population.
Participants were faced with questions such as, why do counter-memorials become impossible within the context of certain cityscapes, for example, the 2002 genocide or the 2019 Delhi Riots in India? Bringing them to another semantic layer of justice and reparations within the cityscape.
Furthermore, in the context of Kathmandu, knowledge is loaded with the concepts of indigeneity and modernity, in a complementary relationship.
The mind maps were first created in the smaller groups that worked together in the first workshop, then emerged a larger map, collectively connecting the 5 groups’ maps. Connections were then made across these maps. In the course of our discussion, we explored how this multi-layered web of terms could connect to the participants’ personal experiences of urbanity, leading to the emergence of new words and concepts as connections were drawn.
