Intervention

At Design Academy Eindhoven (DAE) the term intervention is used when a designer or design researcher adds to, or alters, the status quo. Interventions are often carried out in public space (indoors or outside), with the aim of changing the perspective towards that space of the people that use it. Intervention can also be aimed at improving the design and use of the space. Interventionist art or design practices are often driven by a desire to reclaim common rights to public space and, as such, regularly use ‘hit-and-run’ tactics, aiming to create a temporary disruption (Gielen, 2013; Markussen, 2013).

Most definitions of intervention are based on the model of the autonomous practitioner, whereby a person, or a group of people, decide whether a situation demands a particular action. They enter – often unannounced, unadvertised, and not commissioned – and, making use of a particular context, instigate a change (Markussen, 2013). In this sense, interventions are seen as short-lived and seemingly isolated actions – as opposed to the approach of long-term, participatory processes that seek dialogue with different stakeholders.

The research of DAE alumnus and TRADERS researcher, Pablo Calderón, (see also dialogue) shows the roles that short-term interventions can play in long-term participatory processes (Calderón Salazar, 2017b). In such an approach, the focus is not only on the specific qualities of a given intervention, but also on how it is embedded in a larger narrative. This is the case when an intervention is reiterated with the participation of different people over an extended period of time, becoming an evolving participatory action rather than remaining a one-off event; or when interventions are made at specific moments over the course of a longer trajectory as a way of consolidating the people’s engagement. If this approach is followed, interventions can be part of – and affect – broader systems that extend over time and space.