These drawings were made for the research project: Resistance & Compromise – Spatial & Aesthetic approaches of Alternative Cultural Spaces in Lisbon, Ljubljana & Geneva. Lausanne: EPFL, 2016. Dissertação de doutoramento de Letícia do Carmo:​

Driven by struggles against standardised and authoritarian urban contexts, Alternative Cultural Spaces are examples of spatial, convivial, creative and political experiences. The cities of Lisbon, Ljubljana and Geneva contribute to reflect on social and political engagement related to the "aesthetics of resistance", influenced by practices of counter-cultures and avant-gardes. However, these "alternative aesthetics" have become trendy over the last few years, becoming no longer exclusively used by leading resistance or subversive actions but being object of recuperation and consequently of instrumentalisation by neoliberal strategies. Culture and creativity are at the core of urban planning, based on competitive processes and aiming at economic profit, resulting in aestheticisation processes of: alternative experiences born from grassroots projects, built over time; top-down processes that force the projects and their spaces to adopt restricted norms in order to assure survival; processes born with the projects designed, recreated and guided by a for-profit concern, contributively reducing the diversity of urban experience and control creativity. The way a spatial ambiance is perceived by the user of a particular space depends largely on the mode of production of that same space, and on the primary intentions existing behind the creation of a particular design or construction. Compromise is present always present. Logics of urban-spatial occupation highlight the importance of the squat movement in Geneva, of the counter-cultures in Ljubljana, and of the fragmented associations' networks in Lisbon.

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Fazem também parte do projecto de investigação: Creative Cities and Counter-Culture, acompanhando o livro: La contre-culture domestiqué - art, espace et politique dans la ville gentrifiée (Metis Presse, Genève 2020):

Entre soumission, provocation et revendication, cet ouvrage propose un regard scientifique sur la mutation des mouvements de contestation pour affronter la gentrification et garantir que l’expérimentation et l’ambiguïté font partie intégrante des espaces de la ville. Ce projet examine la transformation des mouvements de contre-culture à travers une série de cas d’études élargie aux villes de Genève, Lisbonne et Ljubljana.

Team: Letícia do Carmo (investigação e ilustração), Mischa Piraud, Yves Pedrazzini, Luca Pattaroni.

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Laboratoire de Sociologie Urbaine (LaSUr), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL)