The six researchers are offered a training program, which is regularly open for other researchers. This training program starts with a kick-off event for a larger audience at the 25 and the 26th of February in Z33 (Hasselt, Belgium) and MAD Faculty/LUCA School of Arts (Genk, Belgium). This event will open up the debate about the role of art and design research in engaging people to participate in public space contexts.
The training program consists of relevant transferable skills training sessions that are needed to work in public space contexts and are thought in the context of two summer schools. In these summer schools TRADERS taps into the full potential of the developments in art and design research in European academia and takes it to a new interdisciplinary, inter-sectoral and socio-economic level. Also, TRADERS provides training for researchers in 5 approaches to participation in public space (intervention, play, mapping, data-mining, modelling) in the form of 5 training weeks. Finally, TRADERS offers the researchers secondments in art, design, architectural, creative and public organisations/companies (Z33, KOMPAN, STBY, Commonplace Digital Ltd. and the City of Gothenburg).
For coherence in the training, Hasselt-Genk will be the anchor case area and a meeting point in which the TRADERS researchers work together to develop the methodological framework coherently. Hasselt-Genk provides two main reference cases for research and training. The first case concerns the planning of a light rail tram connection between Hasselt and Genk by the Flemish transport company ‘De Lijn’. The second case concerns the construction of a new campus in Genk that will be used as a hospital as well as a school for health care. Through these cases, TRADERS will develop the methodological framework around three aspects of public space: public space and mobility (public transport), public space and institutions (health care, education) and, overlapping, the aspect of public space and the creation of new meaning (related to actors and agencies). For this, TRADERS will cooperate with Z33: a centre of expertise on art, design and architecture in relation to public space.
