Thriving Communities In Conversation: Placemaking for Civic Imagination

On Tuesday 12 July, Thriving Communities will be in conversation with Milena Ivkovic (Placemaking Western Balkans & Placemaking Europe) and Sofija Bogeva (SmartUp) on the subject of Placemaking for Civic Imagination in SE Europe.

Placemaking is an inclusive process of co-creation that builds capacity within communities to take ownership over their commons and public spaces.

In this session we will hear our guests’ experience of leading community placemaking actions in south-east Europe. We will discuss how other communities can follow these examples, and how more placemaking can help grow civic imagination in SE Europe.

Our ‘In Conversation’ series are designed around discussions on the real opportunities and challenges of the journey to create thriving communities. You are welcome to participate with questions, or also to just go for a walk and listen in.

Placemaking

Placemaking paves the way for a paradigm shift in the role of citizens in deciding and designing how their community assets are developed and managed. The process of placemaking also helps to build collective civic imagination capacity – essential to creating demand for better futures.

The great thing about public spaces is that they can be quickly transformed into whatever citizens need them to be. This potential for fast, affordable and experimental transformations of public space and public commons is something that most communities need to use more to help test possible futures.

Given the broad value of placemaking processes, we encourage all communities use this approach as part of their overall radical change journey.

Our Guests:

• Milena Ivkovic is a Dutch-Serbian architect and expert in public space design and public participation. Her design practice BLOK 74 is based in the Netherlands and is a founder of the non-profit Placemaking Western Balkans based in Serbia. She is also on the Board of Placemaking Europe.

• Sofija Bogeva is an Innovation Specialist and Co-founder of SmartUp Social Innovation Lab in North Macedonia. She was also the lead of the City of Skopje Innovation Centre - focusing on the areas of digitalization, climate and public sector innovation. Sofija has designed and facilitated many innovation events for private, public and civil sector partners in North Macedonia – including placemaking experiments in Skopje.