The soul of the stones, the social value of the Heritage is a workshop we did in Córdoba (Spain) with PAX-Patios de la Axerquia Association in colaboration with La Casa de Tomasa and Luciana Centeno Centre. It consisted of a heritage walk with the children and their parents through the neighborhood of the Axerquía, an area that is part of Cordoba's historic centre, recognised as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO, as is the "Fiesta de los patios" inscribed in 2012 on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. 

Together we collected "footprints" with paper and pencils through “Ishitaku”, a millenary Japanese technique to extract the soul of heritage and capture its presence or absence.

We discovered different heritage elements of the city and its history: the fountain of the Written Stone, San Agustin´s square, Viana Palace and the “patio” of the Luciana Centeno Centre.

The textures printed on the participants' work have quickly connected them with the stories they were hearing from the adults and the architecture they were experiencing during the workshop.

“This is wheat”, like it used to be planted in the garden of the convent of San Agustín.

“I have drawn the water”, by rubbing the stone of the fountain.

“This looks like blood”, the blood of the soldiers who guarded the entrance to the Viana Palace.

The objective was to identify places that could allow us to build collective narratives drawing from our shared experience and enrich the way how young people understand the heritage they are a part of.

Afterwards, we exhibited their findings on the Luciana Centeno Centre's patio.

We concluded the workshop with the strong feeling that without us the stones would be lifeless.