The Productive Identities Network
It was created in 2002 with the purpose of boosting regional economies, fostering social inclusion, supporting and strengthening productive projects, redefining the significance of cultural diversity and facilitating citizen networking.
It was implemented in association with the Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata, jointly with provincial and municipal governments. Currently, the territorial representation of this governmental partner network is located in the provinces of La Pampa, Chubut, Santa Cruz, San Juan, Formosa, Jujuy, Santiago del Estero, Chaco, Mendoza, Río Negro, Tierra del Fuego and Corrientes. It is divided into three stages. In the first stage, craftsmen collectively generate an Object and Clothing Collection with strong local significance and impact. Each Provincial Collection represents different aspects of the provincial identity reflecting each people's origin, landscape and urban life.
In the second stage, since 2009, the programme offers the space and pedagogical tools for planning productive experience and Provincial Collection sales in a participate fashion among provincial groups.
This process gave rise to the PRODUCTIVE IDENTITY (IDENTIDADES PRODUCTIVAS) network, key collective actor of the programme's third stage, currently made up of 750 artisans from different cultural communities articulated by 12 provincial groups engaged in creating, producing and selling as partners these provincial and interprovincial Collections of collective design.
Challenges identified in the implementation of this measure: The idea of the programme comes up during the 2001 Argentine crisis, and the first challenges encountered were to achieve political will to develop the programme, create the tools to facilitate the articulation among parties interested in this concept, get people to be willing to create networks to generate a creative and productive project articulating individual projects.
US $1,400,000.00
Initial objectives have been met and also transformed. After working for ten years in the Argentine territory and helping to create a social network dedicated to collective design, we have understood that this initiative has not only helped to improve the quality of life and working conditions for craftsmen families and communities throughout the country, but to this end, new ways of teaching and involvement were also generated, outperforming the initial ones, which today allow to project new work lines related to the central issue of collective design. One of them is the possibility of interaction between Argentine craftsmen and teachers with design groups and institutions from other Latin American countries.