Mural for women by Btoy
L'Hospitalet
10.12.2018
At the beginning of December 2018, the artist Btoy performed a mural in one of the buildings in the neighbourhood of La Florida (Hospitalet del Llobregat) within the framework of the “Plan de Regeneración Urbana Integral Les Planes – Bloques Florida”, promoted by the town hall of the city. To carry it out, some participatory sessions were performed with the neighbours in order to create the idea and design that would configure the mural so that it could be executed later. The objective of this intervention was to return the colours to the neighbourhood, improve its conditions through art and vindicate the role of women in the society.
In the video, BTOY's mural of women in the La Florida neighbourhood, created with the city's Women's Programme and with the participation of local women's groups. They explain how the artist was chosen —a muralist whose work already stands up for women— and what they wanted the walls to say: «that if they had to walk past here, it would give them a good feeling».
Video transcript (translated from Catalan)3 min 6 s
It is a project in which a series of murals will be made in the La Florida neighbourhood, working on the issues that matter locally; and in this case, which is what we are working on from the city's Women's Programme, the mural will be about women and above all about the women of the neighbourhood.
I think it is important to promote projects that bring together two different strands: one is public space and, on the other hand, artistic intervention from this gender perspective. For us it has always been very important to work on the participation of the city's women's groups.
What the mural will try to reflect are the sensibilities and the ideas or concepts the women consider important, what they want to express, what they want to say, where they want to be present, what matters to them. For them it was quite important that, if they had to walk past here, it would give them a good feeling.
BTOY is a muralist whose work focuses very much on standing up for women. This choice was ideal for the ease of having an artist who is already working naturally along those lines within her own work.
For me it represents something like a longing for freedom: joy, and enjoyment too, because it is also like a profession more fully realised. A very positive message about life.
I think being able to make gender visible within public space is important in order to deconstruct, in some way, the archetypal uses of this shared space and, on the other hand, so that it gives freedom of movement to women and men alike.
Video transcript, edited for reading: repetitions and verbal fillers have been removed, the text has been punctuated and speakers are identified.
