Conference of collective intervention on the Pueblo Español
Es Baluard continues its investigation on tourism in the framework of the project in progress “Ciudad de vacaciones” (‘Holiday City’). The actions being carried out include the initiation of the collaboration with the Left Hand Rotation collective who, in an approach close to relational artistic practices, are developing interventions in the public space with collaborative dynamics and involving society and other creators in reflections on contemporary cities.
Based on the premise of a well-known Chinese proverb – “Tourism is like fire. It can cook your food or burn your house down” – Left Hand Rotation will be working on what the “Pueblos Españoles” (‘Spanish Villages’) project is and represents (specifically, the construction of the Palma village was initiated by Fernando Chueca Goitiain 1965) and on tourism as a double-edged sword for cities.
In the conference, which will take place on 12th, 13th and 14th May 2016 at Es Baluard and in the Son Espanyolet neighbourhood, we will analyse and reflect on cities as a theme park, on the “Brand City” concept, on tourism as a tool legitimated by the economic crisis and in addition, a series of collective urban actions will be carried out in the area.
Taking this axis of the Pueblo Español as a setting, an analysis will be made of how the arrival of foreign visitors affects nearby neighbourhoods like Son Espanyolet and the dynamics that are produced amongst the original residents and the relationship of the same with these icons outside of space-time.
The line of these theoretical-practical actions refers us to other, previous projects by the collective, like Gentrificación no es nombre de señora (“Gentrification is not a lady’s name”) and above all Acciones Urbanas Absurdas (“Absurd Urban Actions”), the goal of which is to attack the common sense that leads to the assimilation of the city as a control space (in the case we are concerned with, the city as a tourist setting) through the situation undergoing intervention and the subsequent manipulation of the audiovisual recording of the action, different discourse plans of the same device that seek to reveal the mechanisms underlying the notion of public space, combating the absurd using the chain action-recording-manipulation of the recording-diffusion.
The conferences are free with prior enrolment at: programesbaluard@gmail.com. Limited places.
Left Hand Rotation is an artistic collective active since 2005 which develops projects that articulate intervention, appropriationism, recording and video manipulation.
The collective is structured as an impersonal entity not associated to the individual / creator and approaches every project under the consideration that the reception community is not a spectator, but an indispensable, active part of the transformation of social reality. The will of communities to testify to their situation makes the articulation of the action possible.
The “Ciudad de vacaciones” project is based on a series of processes and investigation developed in time and will be visible in 2017, in collaboration with the Centre Arts Santa Mònicaof Barcelona, IED and other entities that will join it.
The project "Ciutat de Vacances" has the collaboration of:
