Beneath the City

Hi all, well lots of interesting workshops happening in the last couple weeks. This past week is one that we have each year about public space and functions of the city. It's truly one of my favorites because we see so many things that we would probably have no idea were happening culturally and in the city if it weren't for our professor. She does a lot of digging and leg work to get us into some of these places - maybe you remember the one from last year where we went to the occupied farmhouse in the outskirts called Can Masdeu? Oh well, anyway, here is what we did last week.

We went to an old industrial part of the city called Can Battlo, which was bought by a rich developer some years ago and its a huge area of old textile factories which the developer wants to turn into some sort of North American, highrise type park which really does not reflect the community or what the people need. Anyhow, it has been sitting untouched for years and so finally the neighbourhood said if you don't do something with it soon, then we will. So last year they took over one of the buildings and are working, with some support from the government to turn it into a library and community hall space. The old buildings are really beautiful and could easily be turned into a university campus or something like some of the old industrial places in the city. Lots of potential. Hopefully the other project never actually gets built!

After that we went to a less local place, actually another factory which will soon be demolished in the new technology district of the city, which has been taken over by a large group of people (50+) most of whom are immigrants from various places, but it would seem the majority are from Africa. Anyhow we met the leader of the group who gave us a full tour of the place - amazing! He speaks 12 languages, everyone comes to him with the problems and he seems to be quite charismatic. Anyhow, there are people all over the city pushing shopping carts full of everything that they find in the streets and the trash - they take these things back to this place (they call it Calafrica) and here they sort, recycle, and ship what they don't use themselves to factories for recycling in Africa. They have converted the space to live and work in, they have discotecas set up, restaurant, everything! Anyhow, here are some photos of it all.