Last week, we wrapped up “Disassembling Medellín’s Streets: a collaborative exploration of infinitesimal urbanities through ethnographic invention.” And it genuinely felt like a small, careful success: we learned together, experimented together, and built a shared toolkit for noticing what the city usually asks us to ignore.
Across the week, we worked from a simple conviction: the street is not a backdrop. It is an unstable assemblage of textures, gestures, improvised infrastructures, micro-rhythms, residues, glances, frictions, and tiny negotiations that rarely make it into official narratives of “the urban.” Our focus was precisely those minimal, often unnoticed elements—the subtle details that hold everyday life together while slipping past the usual scales of description.
What we did (and made)
The workshop moved between three intertwined modes:
- Field exploration in small groups: each group worked in a different area of Medellín, developing situated ways of seeing, listening, mapping, and documenting.
- Method-making as practice: we didn’t just “apply” ethnographic tools—we invented and adapted devices(prompts, templates, sensory registers, diagrammatic notations, micro-maps, photo protocols, and narrative constraints) to fit what each site demanded.
- Multimodal production: the week culminated in the creation of hybrid ethnographic outputs—pieces that combined text, images, diagrams, and designed formats to translate street life without flattening it.
Socialization: sharing the city back to itself
We closed with a socialization session where each group presented their process and outcomes: what their site revealed, which “minor” elements became analytically loud, what resisted representation, and how their devices shaped the realities they were able to register. The room became a temporary archive of Medellín-in-fragments: not a single city, but many cities—co-existing, overlapping, and sometimes contradicting each other.
What stayed with me most was the workshop’s tone: generous, curious, and rigorous without being heavy-handed. A collective commitment to craft—to careful attention, ethical description, and experimental form.
Thanks + what’s next
A huge thank you to everyone who participated and made the week feel alive—through fieldwork energy, methodological bravery, and the willingness to build things together rather than simply discuss them.
Some of the outputs will be refined and shared in the coming weeks (in print and online). If you’re interested in future iterations—whether as a participant, collaborator, or host—feel free to reach out.