Barcelona World Capital of Architecture 2026 puts the spotlight on how creative disciplines transform everyday life. In this context, Rebobinart took part on 21 May in the fourth session of the cycle Bringing Architecture and Social Design Closer to Citizens, District by District. The session took place at the Centre Cívic Can Bastó in Nou Barris. It brought together professionals, artists and residents to reflect on the role of urban art in public space.

A cycle to bring social architecture closer to every district of Barcelona

The cycle is organised by Ojalá Projects, led by Anaïs Esmerado and Amaya Martínez-Marcos. Ojalá Projects investigates how different disciplines influence everyday life and wellbeing. It does so through co-creation processes and community research. The aim is to transform spaces and improve people’s emotional health.

The programme travels across all ten districts of Barcelona. Ten sessions, ten themes, ten real case studies. On one hand, each session is anchored in a specific project. On the other, it is open to any curious adult, with no prior training required. Within the framework of Barcelona World Capital of Architecture 2026, the Nou Barris session focused on public spaces for urban art. Moreover, it included a participatory activity and an open debate with the neighbourhood.

Sixteen years producing urban art in Barcelona: Rebobinart’s journey

Marc Garcia, director of Rebobinart, opened the session. He traced sixteen years of urban art production in Barcelona and across forty-five cities. Everything began in 2010 with Persianes Lliures. It was the first attempt to build an alternative system to municipal bylaws. Furthermore, it marked the start of a working method: negotiate, experiment and learn from mistakes.

From that first project, Murs Lliures was born in 2012. Then came Wallspot. The platform went on to manage 106 active walls in 22 cities. It also accumulated over 22,000 registered artists and 33,000 documented interventions. On one hand, the model proved it was possible to create legal urban art systems at a global scale. On the other, it revealed the limits of managing public space from a private organisation. In 2023, the City Council launched Murs Oberts. In 2024, Wallspot closed.

Garcia then presented the wide range of Rebobinart projects. Ús Barcelona — five editions between 2014 and 2018, up to 20,000 attendees —, interventions at TRAM stations, the transformation of the Blocs Florida in L’Hospitalet, PichiAvo’s mural at Livensa Living in Esplugues, and campaigns for Visa and Nike. In this way, he illustrated how each commission implies a different logic. Each interlocutor brings new rules of the game.

The question that ran through the entire talk: who decides what gets painted on the walls of the city?

NOU Sentit Urbà: an urban art laboratory in Nou Barris

Finally, Garcia presented NOU Sentit Urbà. It is a public tender launched by the Barcelona City Council and the Nou Barris District. It has a budget of 953,000€ from Next Generation EU funds. As a result, the project has produced 18 interventions in the district: murals, sculptures, light installations and actions in schools.

The artist selection was a rigorous process. It started from a list of around 500 candidates. This was reduced to 175. Finally, a committee of experts from different fields — arts, marketing, education — selected 17 projects. In this way, the selection process itself was as significant as the resulting works.

Octavi Serra: The Hidden Barcelona

Artist Octavi Serra shared his creative process. He explained how he conceived his installation for NOU Sentit Urbà. The starting question was tourism. The decision, however, was to place it in Nou Barris. A district that does not appear on any tourist map. A neighbourhood that experiences the city’s touristification from the margins.

The Hidden Barcelona uses the language of urban signage. The same arrows and pictograms that guide visitors through Barcelona, applied to a neighbourhood that never appears on the maps. In this way, irony becomes the form and the question, the content. The work neither denounces nor celebrates. It asks. And it does so from a neighbourhood that normally has no voice in this debate.

A debate with the neighbourhood

The session closed with an open debate. Residents and organisations from Nou Barris spoke about NOU Sentit Urbà. It was not comfortable, nor was it meant to be.

Some neighbourhood associations criticised the project’s budget. Above all, they questioned that it came from a fund labelled as tourism. They expressed fears of gentrification. Moreover, they argued that the benefits would not return to the territory.

This tension is part of the project. Within the framework of Barcelona World Capital of Architecture 2026, urban art cannot ignore the contradictions of the territory where it is produced. As Garcia put it: accepting that painting in public space generates conflict is not a problem. It is the starting point.

An activity of the cycle Bringing Architecture and Social Design Closer to Citizens, District by District, organised by Ojalá Projects (Anaïs Esmerado and Amaya Martínez-Marcos), within the framework of Barcelona World Capital of Architecture 2026.