To hell with our good intentions

Abstract

The notion of community mediation as a critical practice committed to social justice is not synonymous with consensus, participation or celebration of diversity; rather, it appears as an unresolved issue about what it transforms or could transform and about its blind spots. In the context of the celebration of ten years of implementation of this working concept at the Fundación Museos de la Ciudad, in Quito, I attempt to make a self-reflection on the lessons learned about the ways of relating between communities and cultural institutions, the current challenges and contradictions. The text accompanies the edition of a series of posters in which a phrase by Ivan Illich is used as a provocation that pushes us to question the positive assumptions of our practice.