"Archive Slum" is a collaborative art proposal that connects artists with the community of African seasonal workers in the shanty towns of Lepe, southern Spain. The aim of the project is to think and develop a communal dynamic archive in which different collective projects are implemented through collaborative art and artistic tools. This initiative generates alternative ways of building memory and common history through self-representation and new contexts that problematize their realities.

The project will take place in the city of Lepe (26,931 inhabitants) in Huelva, southern Spain.

For more than 20 years there have been agricultural migrant workers settlements in the city of Lepe in total abandonment conditions by the public administrations. It is estimated that there are currently a total of 1,100 migrant workers in the slums of Lepe and a total of 5,000 people if we add the settlements in the neighbouring towns of Moguer, Palos de la Frontera and Lucena del Puerto.
These communities are also in social exclusion and labour exploitation conditions. Our objective will be to help reversing this human rights violation situation within our possibilities and framework of action.

This work is aimed at the migrant worker population of Lepe, an itinerant population that depends on the harvest season. This population is mostly from african origin: Maghreb (moroccans, algerians) and sub-Saharan (Mali, Senegal, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea Conakry, Gambia, Ghana) and other nationalities such as Bulgarians or Portuguese Gypsies in fewer quantities.
We seek to carry out our intervention with the direct participation of this population, working together with them and their approval and direct participation, sharing their living conditions and always taking into account the cultural and ideological differences, acting with the maximum respect for the local culture.

Collaborative diagnosis through field work with ASISTI and the African Workers' Collective to jointly evaluate the problems and existing proposals.
Proposals and negotiation with the communities, on themes to be worked on together.
Collaborative design to think and survey projects and collective prototyping in which practical skills and abilities are acquired to enable the execution and installation of prototypes, furniture or infrastructures.
Collaborative art practices: Community work between artists and local agents, aimed at raising elements for self-representation and visibility, according to the sense and interest of the community and its sharing.
Showing of results through actions in different cultural devices: public art, publication, exhibitions, etc...

The consolidation of a communication and self-representation working group aimed at making this community visible, destigmatized and empowered while encouraging a residency program with continuity over time to improve the access of communities to artistic experiences.
Also, the redistribution of social, cultural, economic, symbolic and community capital, thus contributing to the resolution of conflicts, intervention and transformation of the social, political and cultural environment of the seasonal worker community in Lepe.
And finally, the consolidation of an open common knowledge bank where dynamics, methodologies and tools are gathered in open source and the articulation of collective participatory work networks, deepening into its reflective, participative and critical character.

This collective learning process proposes an active and direct participation of the seasonal worker community in horizontal decision-making actions. The contents production and activities are developed through co-design and participatory methodologies and then put to debate in open citizen assemblies. The fact that the improvement of settlements through community infrastructures will involve the participation of other activist groups will strength the existing mutual support networks and create new ones.
Also, the communication campaigns activated from the community itself and the collection of results in different media (publications, exhibitions, etc.) seek to influence the local, regional, national and european public sphere, to establish open dialogues with citizenship.

Our first motivation is that this project implies the struggle for human rights. Second, it is in our line of interest and action as well as in our experimental purpose that seeks the articulation between art, architecture and activism.

On the other hand, our concern for the increase of xenophobic and racist attitudes in the spanish society moves us to commit ourselves to a project that advocates inclusion, anti-racism and diversity as a form of direct action that faces our immediate reality.

Personnel costs 15000 EUR, Community mediation 5000 EUR, 4 artistic residencies fees 8000 EUR, Office expenses 4000 EUR, Space rental 7400 EUR, Dynamic project 9000 EUR, Communication expenses 1000 EUR, Travel and acommodation 4000 EUR, Subsistence allowance 2000 EUR, Production expenses 5000 EUR, Publication 2000 EUR, Exhibition production / Public art actions 3000 EUR.

We are interested in having information about projects in similar experiences processes that address the issue of collective memory and transmission of knowledge. And on the other hand, the processes work from the point of view of art, the visibility of migrants, their problems and human rights.