In 2019, La Hervidera carried out an educational experimentation laboratory aimed at investigating new forms of knowledge through the arts. From this space, workshops and projects were developed for diverse audiences, alongside pedagogical materials and furniture designed to expand learning possibilities. The collective also offered consulting services to schools and designed train-the-trainer programs, cultivating a fertile ground for rethinking education through art.

The laboratory understood education as a form of cultural production with a strong political dimension. Inspired by disruptive pedagogies as well as Montessori, Waldorf, and Reggio Emilia approaches, it also integrated contributions from neuroeducation, sensory integration, and play-based learning. From this intersection emerged open methodologies that embraced experimentation, trial and error, testing, and spontaneity as drivers of knowledge appropriation and the collective construction of meaning.

The team was composed of an artist, a musician, a visual artist, two visual arts practitioners, and a cultural worker. Together, they created a space where independence and socialization complemented one another, and where each member’s creativity became intertwined with community-based processes. In this way, the laboratory became a site of pedagogical and cultural exploration, where the arts served as a tool for imagining new ways of being, learning, and living together.

La Hervidera is a collective by Alina Maldonado, Aisel Wicab, Ana G. Zambrano, Cristina Medellín, and Idalid Castillo.