ÚSBARCELONA 2015 — a street-art festival reclaiming disused urban spaces

This second edition placed special emphasis on this citizen participation, working in the months before the festival with residents and artists to build alliances aimed at improving the neighbourhood. The idea was to build a collective narrative around the neighbourhood’s history that could be expressed artistically, while also putting residents’ needs on the table. To do this, we worked closely with the Taula Eix Pere IV, the Poblenou neighbourhood association (AA-VV), l’Escocesa, and we collaborated with the Esplai del Sagrat Cor and, in particular, with the residents living along the stretch where Ús Barcelona intervened.

Following this participatory methodology, artistic interventions were carried out on the ground of the square and along the whole street, and the neighbourhood’s history and needs were successfully passed on to the other artists as a source of inspiration for the interventions they would carry out during the festival days. With this starting point, the event was designed as a whole, becoming an amalgam of proposals ranging from live artist exhibitions to attendees taking part in talks and workshops, as well as live music and performances or interactive installations.