El drac de la plaça Les Glòries — a community mural at Barcelona’s Glòries roundabout
Barcelona
25.06.2015
Plaça de les Glòries was our work base throughout March 2015. Ahead of us was a project where collaboration between several public and private bodies, together with citizen participation, were the two main pillars on which stood a project that has left its mark on the fabric of the city and on how Barcelona residents use this space.
The project’s brief was built around the idea of provisionality, given the changes the Glòries roundabout will go through between now and 2019 due to the Gran Via redevelopment works. The goal was a playful, civic space at the Glòries roundabout — a space that, until now, had been characterised by grey concrete, leaving no doubt about the construction process the area has been going through. The project brought together professionals from several fields, and we were all part of this rewarding result.
The parties involved were Barcelona City Council, whose Department of Urban Habitat carried out the redefinition of the space — the urbanisation of a location with no prior use within Barcelona’s urban landscape. Eight schools in Barcelona took part in designing the illustration through a participatory process that ran through the whole school year, deciding on the theme that would fill the space; meanwhile, a team of architects coordinated the execution of the action on the south side of Plaça de les Glòries, and finally Rebobinart was in charge of bringing the artwork to life and of the production.
The action follows a participatory, collaborative thread, where active citizenship plays the leading role, where the voice of children and their needs took precedence over the urban habitat. A city’s habitat is made up of its buildings, urban layouts and forms in general, which have a direct influence on people; on this occasion, the habitat stopped being the influencer and became the influenced. The needs and emotions of the people are what ended up shaping its form, with the citizens as the creative, creating mind. What’s more, the final artwork was carried out by local urban artists, who live the city first-hand and are part of Barcelona’s urban artistic fabric.
We can say that the people transformed the social reality of Plaça de les Glòries, using a material as simple as paint. Art, then, was the catalyst for transforming the urban habitat and for the cultural and social changes our 21st-century society is going through.
“We need active citizens, driven by people who act as subjects building social reality, not as passive spectators of their own lives. But the right to build one’s own life is intimately tied to the right to build collective life. In the case of the city, some authors speak of the right to the city, which ‘is not simply the right of access to what already exists, but the right to change it based on our deepest longings. We need to be sure that we can live with our own creations. But the right to remake ourselves by creating a qualitatively different urban environment is the most prized of all human rights’ (Harvey, 2007:14).”
In the video, how the game painted on the ground in Plaça de les Glòries was made. The creativity came from children at local schools through a consultation process, and Rebobinart found the artists to realise it. The district, the artists and the architects all speak: «if we take it as given that someone decides and installs it, we don't make it ours».
The video in text (abridged) (translated from Catalan)13 min 39 s
The districtWe were commissioned to provide this space with dynamic children's games open to the public. What we wanted was for this space to be used more and more by a population that had turned its back on it, here in Plaça de les Glòries.
We wanted the creativity to come from the children: we wanted them to be the ones thinking about what playing was and how you could play with the fewest possible elements. We ran a consultation, asking local schools how they imagined we could occupy and design this space.
Having to paint it led us to get in touch with Rebobinart, which brings together artists with an approach to street work that interested us and that we thought was the way to stay faithful to the children's creativity without distorting the concept of the work.
RebobinartHere we were the delivery side. We received a brief, some ideas and some drawings that had to be set down on the ground, and what we did was find the artists we thought could render it best.
The most important thing is that, instead of hiring designers or a company, work goes to people who already work in this medium and on this surface. With activities like this, the council helps urban artists find work; and urban artists see that the council's outlook is opening up a little.
The artistsI think it is good that they hire people, and good that they hire me to paint, which is what I love. It is an interesting project because it brightens the city a little, and the ground is a format that hadn't been used much. It would be nice if the drawings were more our own, but that's fine: it is a commission, and you enjoy commissions too.
At the very least it can shift the standard of a city that tends to be grey, impersonal and very large. And it is so welcome, in a city like Barcelona or any other, to have painting and expression in the street —whether music or any kind of art—: it brightens the eye and brightens daily life a little. It is necessary, because what we see affects us visually every day.
People come across it: they don't have to be in the mood to see art, they simply come across it, and that is a different role from the museum's.
The artistsFor me it meant trying working processes I had never used. For instance, rescaling very simple things: you look at this and think it is four strokes, but it is actually a very complicated process. Or using materials I had never handled, like the paint we used.
And also working as a team with other artists, which I think has been very interesting. Even within a tightly defined working scheme, working collectively always gives you ways of working, dialogue and experience. Everyone has their own approach, and I think we feed one another. Interesting, yes, because we meet completely different people: when you aren't there the other person can be, and if you aren't sure, the other person helps. Unity is strength.
The architectsDecisions about public space are taken by architecture, taken by architects, while the visual artist has little say. There are surely areas that ought to fall to artists or painters too and that for now have been left somewhat outside. This project opens a crack: if this work has to be done here, even just the execution, why can't artists do it instead of a company or a crew of operatives?
The districtThe final product sometimes exceeds the initial idea. And the aim we were pursuing —that children have a reference point where they can spend a while playing freely in this space, in the new Plaça de les Glòries— is very, very interesting. Above all the combination of small children, drawings, artists and the city council: an unusual combination I have rarely seen.
I think this is where the complexity of public space lies: making everyone comfortable within an agreement. If we take everything as given, that someone decides and installs it, we don't make it ours. Whereas if you take part in a process, make decisions about what you want and are asked your opinion, and the community ends up deciding something more or less together, then I think everyone has gained.
Abridged version: direct quotes are kept; repetitions, overlapping speech and passages unrelated to the project are left out.
