The Trails & Traces project continues a line of artistic research focused on urban spaces perceived as transitional zones, reflecting on the ways in which they are socially, affectively, and symbolically constructed. The current stage proposes an expansion of both the methodology and thematic framework toward a critical and creative investigation of seemingly neutral urban spaces: the public parks of Timișoara. The parks under consideration (for example: the Botanical Park, the Rose Park, the Children’s Park, Queen Maria Park) will be analyzed as spaces shaped by social interactions, individual experiences, and symbolic constructions. They become observation points for reflecting on the relationships between memory, belonging, and everyday use. The intention is to activate these spaces both as platforms for artistic interventions and as meeting grounds between local history and contemporary practice, between physical and affective space, between archive and repertoire—terms used by Diana Taylor to describe the tension between documented memory and lived memory.

Part of the structure of this project consists of a series of three workshops in the mentioned public spaces, with their results to be presented as small weekend exhibitions. During NAG #19, we will show the results of our first ad-hoc workshop. It took the form of a spontaneous intervention, through collective activities (installation, performance, visual action), in which children, parents, teenagers, or passersby could take part. We understood the aim of such a workshop as creating an artistic experience that is as accessible and participatory as possible, encouraging play, creativity, and encounters between people, while fostering a direct relationship with the green space.