Arte Pública Participada: o Monumento à Multiculturalidade no Parque Urbano do Fróis

This paper is an approach to art as motor for public participation processes. It describes a public art project which led to the installation of three sculptures at the Fróis Urban Park, in Monte da Caparica. The main innovative characteristic of this project was the openness and participative characteristics of the creative process, which was made in collaboration with local inhabitants. The Park has several municipal equipments (library, pool and new headquarters of the local association Clube Recreativo União Raposense) and intends to be a leisure public space to connect the urban neighbourhoods which compose the PIA (Plano Integrado de Almada). The resident population has generally low incomes and is culturally very diverse, mainly composed by people who came from Portuguese rural areas, Cape Verde and Gypsies. The social and cultural diversity of this area led the municipality to propose the construction at the Park of a public art monument inspired in the multiculturality concept. The team developed a public participated process not only to the creation and conception of a “monument” able to promote a common space to the different groups, but also to allow the effective involvement of the population in the urban qualification process, empowering the local community towards a participated citizenship.