iD Barri Import/Export TEMPORARY FURNITURE WORKSHOP  + INTERVENTION IN PUBLIC SPACE+SEMINAR

The districts of Gorg and La Salut, Badalona.

November 2011.
The Temporary Furniture workshop, led by Straddle3 and Todo por la Praxis, was developed in collaboration with Pau Gargallo School of Art and Design of Badalona, and with the participation of Francesc Magrinyà, Gaspar Maza and Ramon Parramon, and was carried out between the 7th and the 11th of November 2011 in the Antic Escorxador of Badalona.

12.11.2011.

On November the 12th, in the Escorxador in La Salut, the project culminated in an intervention in public space, during which the results of the workshop were displayed. The recreational day was carried out with the participation of Gorg Mar and La Salut Neighbourhood Associations, and included several open activities, such as testing out the furniture produced in the workshop, a session of debate, a live grafitti by CHAN (AAVV Amics La Salut) and a communal paella, with music and other festive activities.

The aim of the workshop was to generate, through collective construction using recycled materials, temporary urban furniture, nomadic mobile infrastructures in public space, for use according to demand or in emerging situations of citizen mobilisation. At a time when public space is regaining its position as a stage for visibility and collective claims, items such as these could help during mobilisations, but could also become in themselves generators of festive and recreational support in these situations.

IMPORT/EXPORT

iD Barrio BDN Import/Export was an interdisciplinary research project from iDensitat and Goethe-Institut Barcelona, combining research and intervention in public space, and connecting art to anthropology and urban ethnography within the local context of the districts of Gorg and the South Industrial Estate of Badalona. This space is presently linked into global economic and social processes, a space where both imports (goods, immigrants...) and exports (new images of identity and of urban renewal) come together. The interaction between local and global is highlighted by economic relations, and by the transformation of a territory which previously based its activity upon local production and distribution, and which has now been replaced by local production and delocalised distribution.

This transformation is also related to processes of transnational migration, carrying with it a new strong presence of a big Chinese community. The project's subject matter was the district of the South Industrial Estate of Badalona, located on the border between the town of Badalona and Sant Adrià del Besós, understood as a work-space, and as a place of trade.

The proposal for iD Barrio BDN Import / Export included various transdiciplinary and interrelated projects:

- A workshop led by Straddle3 and Todo por la Praxis, with students from School of Art and Design Pau Gargallo, and also with Francesc Magrinyà, Gaspar Maza and Ramon Parramon. It took place between the 7th and the 11th of November in the Antic Escorxador, in Badalona's La Salut district. On the 12th November, the results of the workshop were presented in an intervention in public space.

- A social and anthropological research project using methodologies of urban ethnography, directed by Francesc Magrinyà (UPC) and Gaspar Maza (URV), with the participation of Elizabeth Caro, Xavi Feliu, Luis and Maria Lobelle July, all students from the University Rovira i Virgili (Tarragona), and a video documentary project by Guillermo Cruz with the participation of Francesc Magrinyà, Gaspar Maza and Ramon Parramon.

- Arc de Gorg, an artistic intervention in public space by KUNSTrePUBLIK, a collective from Berlin, formed by Matthias Einhoff, Philip Horst, Markus Lohmann, Harry Sachs, and Daniel Seiple.