Part of the experience of the program Integration Process Caracas includes the work of artists and landscape architects with several community groups. “Art and community - proposals for integration” generated meeting and learning spaces for children, adolescents and adults in the La Palomera community.

Cultural Capsules
Between February and May 2019, the children of the Concentración 094 school, the Miguel José Sanz municipal school and the Manuel Felipe Rugeles preschool, learned various traditional Venezuelan dances in a workshop led by the group Ensayo Colectivo (Bigott Foundation) and Tradition 360, with artists María Alejandra Orozco, Harold Palacios, Nicolás Brito, Sara Medina, Keyner Quiñónez, Crisfremeli Marrero and Paola Puga. The workshop titled "Cultural Capsules", focused on raising awareness of Venezuelan popular culture and traditional dance expressions. The teaching methodology in each school, followed by the public presentation of choreographies with the children, proved to be a very powerful integration strategy between the children, between adults and children, and between the community of La Palomera and the rest of the city.

Book and Printmaking Workshop
Students from the Alejandro Fortique High School participated in a workshop where they observed and sketched their surroundings, narrated stories about their experiences and made them into graphic boocklets using engraving techniques. Rosnenyer Guevara, Anniel Ruiz, Luciano Chacón, Glendys González, Dylan Ortiz were guided by the artists Gabriel Pérez, Ámbar Armas, Wifer Márquez and Paula Mercado, between the months of February and May 2019. The students learned to use artisan graphic techniques such as xylography (engraving in wood), and turned their drawings into engravings. The images and stories were compiled into various booklets that were exhibited at the high school and at the Hacienda La Trinidad Cultural Park.

Workshop “The House is made with the body”
The body is a tool to understand space and to approach and get to know others. Through playful activities with children from La Palomera, the workshop "The house is made with the body", led by María Fernanda Abzueta and Dora Peña of Laboratorio Ciudadano No Violencia Activa between February and May 2019, the children have an opportunity to explore different scales of space: the body´s immediate personal space, the private space of the house and the public space of the community. Its intention is to allow the children to reflect on the way physical and cultural borders may separate the barrio and the rest of the city. The dance and movement exercises sought to dilute these barriers and instead weave community, through the body, and explore the connections between space and habitat.

The workshop was attended by children from the soup kitchen Puntos Solidarios, whose ages range between 6 and 12 years of age, including Karly González, Christian Aguilera, Marcos Aguilera, Marilyn Segovia, Andrea Pérez, Karen González, Aleanny Viera, Mariela Maricuto, Santiago Díaz, Jandary Valery, Valeriana López, Khlysmerli González, Ivana Borges, Karinani Cabrera, Kender Jiménez, Camina Rico, Enyerber Torres, Natacha Gómez, Yilfredo Rodríguez, Rogeilys Cardozo, Karelys Cabrera, Natalia Díaz.

Green workshop, gardens of La Palomera
The Green Workshop, carried out by Gabriel Nass and Ambar Armas since February 2019, focused on mapping the gardens of La Palomera, getting to know their owners, learning their stories and making a wealth of knowledge about plants visible. Mrs. Taís Noriega takes care of the few pigeons that still remain in La Palomera (Palomera is a pigeon house in Spanish), as well as a grape vine and a small mango-bearing tree, together with her husband. Mrs. Elizabeth inherited her love of plants from her mother, and together with her brother cultivates a small oasis of pines, Dracaena fragrans and lemon grass. Mr. William Díaz, known in the community as “Catalina”, has maintained vegetable crops for 20 years along with his brother Víctor where they cultivate more than 50 species of plants. Mrs. Marina is proud to have a 30-year-old garden with beautiful orchids and arum lilies as well as an orange blossom bush that fills the entrance with its aroma. Mr. Alfonso Carrasco, one of the founders of La Palomera, has an avocado tree that is 20 years old.
Knowing and disseminating the existence of these gardens belies the myth that nothing grows in the barrio. The survey revealed not only a great diversity of species, but also compelling stories of the relationship that the inhabitants have with their plants.

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Client: United States Venezuelan Afairs Unit | Team: Enlace Foundation, Foundation Bigott, Puntos Solidarios soup kitchen, Alcaldía Baruta, Laboratorio Ciudadano de No Violencia Activa, Ensayo Colectivo, Taller Cuadernillos, Taller Verde, Colegio Miguel José Sanz, Colegio Concentración 094, Liceo Alejo Fortique and Preescolar Manuel Felipe Rugeles. | Photography: Enlace Foundation