(Extract from Joan Fontcuberta’s text on Xavier Ribas’ photographs in BLINK, Phaidon Press, London 2002. p.313) © Phaidon Press / Joan Fontcuberta
© XAVIER RIBAS - Sundays (1994-1997) 31 C-Type print 120 x 140 cm. Edition of 6.
[En] If you take a stroll one sunny Sunday morning
through the peripheries of Barcelona you’ll come across a strange
landscape. Between the motorways and housing blocks, the industrial
states, the commercial centres and sports complexes; between the nature
parks and the theme parks, at the edge of all this contemporary
urbanization, you will find the marginal areas where folk flock together
every weekend to spend their free time. The question is: Why do people
turn these residual spaces into the centre of their leisure activity?
We live in the society of leisure. However, the leisure here is not that of idleness, but of activity -the so- called “active leisure”, which according to the sector’s industries, forms the ideal complement to work. Thus, those who have spent all day at the office are recommended to take up paintball, bungee jumping or rafting; while the scaffolder can haul himself off to Port Aventura to see the world. For simply to do nothing, besides being downright uneconomic, is looked at askance; and rest gets turned, as if by magic, into a business. Consequently, we get the production of areas for organized leisure which resemble the areas organized for production. The work ethic and aesthetic are applied to leisure time in such a way that it is now feasible to mix up the benefits and anxieties of one with the other. With this set-up, it is hard to see how leisure can be maintained as a therapy for work.
At the end of the Sixties, Line Four of the Barcelona Metro was constructed, linking the Poblenou district to the city centre. From then on, the journey could be made without having to contemplate either the ruined scenery of abandoned factories in Nova Icaria (the present Olympic Village) or the dusty warehouses of the transportation companies. The general feeling in the neighbourhood was that it wouldn’t be necessary any longer to go up to Barcelona, seeing that one was now part of it. I don’t remember this meaning much to me, but when the annual San Juan street party came round, the bonfire which we had always built at the crossroads of Pujadas street with Lope de Vega was prohibited by the police, from that year on. Thus, with the Metro’s arrival, and consequently the arrival of the city itself, there also came the restrictions, some of them with a certain logic: the paved and dirt streets had been asphalted and, as is well-known, asphalt is melted by fire. The following year we had our bonfire away from the asphalt and the city, towards the La Mina district, at a place we called “El Rancho Grande” which was, despite its name, nothing more than a vacant lot full of old junk and weeds. To be sure, it wasn’t a very attractive setting -however it did allow us to bring off an event which in the former place had become impossible.
Lewis Baltz said that the most untamed pockets of wilderness in the Western world were to be found at the peripheries of big cities (while in fact the idea of a nature park implies a certain intervention and a long list of prohibitions). According to Baltz these marginal spaces found at the city’s edge are where we can best experience the absence of order and the social laws which keep us in check. And Watteau calls up similar feelings in his famous painting Embarkation for Cytherea. In it the painter offers us his Classical version of the return to Nature, with caryatids and cherubims, in a setting which abounds in vegetation and studied gesture. It’s a scene full of noise and acrobatics, which shows the transformation undergone by man and woman when they get back their lost paradise of love and celebration. The marginal land of the urban peripheries, like Watteau’s Isle of Cytherea, is a superfluous place within the limits of the strictly necessary, where one can get into such anodyne activities as having a walk, reading or picnicking, simply for the pleasure of the distraction without intermediaries.
It could be argued that occupying these places is a response to a desperate situation. Or as Albert Camus puts it in The First Man, the poor person’s lot is to live eternally surrounded by common names (and places). However, when I’ve visited such cathedrals of organized leisure as Isla Fantasia, Port Aventura or Montigalà, I’ve found more tranquillity in the adjacent patches of wasteland converted into improvised sunday dining rooms, than in the park interior itself. It strikes me that behind this improvisation there lies more design than accident. It is possible, then, that the interest in these spaces is due more to people coming to see the periphery as a place of freedom. Or put another way, that freedom can only arise in a residual space, and therefore presents us with an image of desolation.
We live in the society of leisure. However, the leisure here is not that of idleness, but of activity -the so- called “active leisure”, which according to the sector’s industries, forms the ideal complement to work. Thus, those who have spent all day at the office are recommended to take up paintball, bungee jumping or rafting; while the scaffolder can haul himself off to Port Aventura to see the world. For simply to do nothing, besides being downright uneconomic, is looked at askance; and rest gets turned, as if by magic, into a business. Consequently, we get the production of areas for organized leisure which resemble the areas organized for production. The work ethic and aesthetic are applied to leisure time in such a way that it is now feasible to mix up the benefits and anxieties of one with the other. With this set-up, it is hard to see how leisure can be maintained as a therapy for work.
At the end of the Sixties, Line Four of the Barcelona Metro was constructed, linking the Poblenou district to the city centre. From then on, the journey could be made without having to contemplate either the ruined scenery of abandoned factories in Nova Icaria (the present Olympic Village) or the dusty warehouses of the transportation companies. The general feeling in the neighbourhood was that it wouldn’t be necessary any longer to go up to Barcelona, seeing that one was now part of it. I don’t remember this meaning much to me, but when the annual San Juan street party came round, the bonfire which we had always built at the crossroads of Pujadas street with Lope de Vega was prohibited by the police, from that year on. Thus, with the Metro’s arrival, and consequently the arrival of the city itself, there also came the restrictions, some of them with a certain logic: the paved and dirt streets had been asphalted and, as is well-known, asphalt is melted by fire. The following year we had our bonfire away from the asphalt and the city, towards the La Mina district, at a place we called “El Rancho Grande” which was, despite its name, nothing more than a vacant lot full of old junk and weeds. To be sure, it wasn’t a very attractive setting -however it did allow us to bring off an event which in the former place had become impossible.
Lewis Baltz said that the most untamed pockets of wilderness in the Western world were to be found at the peripheries of big cities (while in fact the idea of a nature park implies a certain intervention and a long list of prohibitions). According to Baltz these marginal spaces found at the city’s edge are where we can best experience the absence of order and the social laws which keep us in check. And Watteau calls up similar feelings in his famous painting Embarkation for Cytherea. In it the painter offers us his Classical version of the return to Nature, with caryatids and cherubims, in a setting which abounds in vegetation and studied gesture. It’s a scene full of noise and acrobatics, which shows the transformation undergone by man and woman when they get back their lost paradise of love and celebration. The marginal land of the urban peripheries, like Watteau’s Isle of Cytherea, is a superfluous place within the limits of the strictly necessary, where one can get into such anodyne activities as having a walk, reading or picnicking, simply for the pleasure of the distraction without intermediaries.
It could be argued that occupying these places is a response to a desperate situation. Or as Albert Camus puts it in The First Man, the poor person’s lot is to live eternally surrounded by common names (and places). However, when I’ve visited such cathedrals of organized leisure as Isla Fantasia, Port Aventura or Montigalà, I’ve found more tranquillity in the adjacent patches of wasteland converted into improvised sunday dining rooms, than in the park interior itself. It strikes me that behind this improvisation there lies more design than accident. It is possible, then, that the interest in these spaces is due more to people coming to see the periphery as a place of freedom. Or put another way, that freedom can only arise in a residual space, and therefore presents us with an image of desolation.
----
[Cast] Si paseamos por la periferia de
Barcelona una mañana soleada de domingo descubriremos un paisaje
curioso. Entre las autopistas y los bloques de viviendas, entre las
zonas industriales, los centros comerciales y los complejos deportivos;
entre los parques naturales y los parques temáticos, en los límites de
toda esta urbanidad contemporánea, encontraremos unos espacios
marginales donde la gente recala semanalmente para pasar su tiempo
libre. La cuestión es: ¿Por qué la gente convierte estos espacios
residuales en el centro de sus actividades de ocio dominical?
Parece ser que vivimos en la sociedad del ocio,
pero no del ocio como descanso, sino del “ocio activo” que, según las
industrias del sector, es el complemento ideal del trabajo. Así, al que
se pasa todo el día en la oficina se le recomienda que practique el
paintball, el poenting o el rafting, y al encofrador que se vaya a Port
Aventura a ver mundo. Y es que no hacer nada, además de antieconómico,
está mal visto y el ocio se convierte, por arte de magia, en un negocio.
En consecuencia, se producen áreas para el ocio organizado que se
parecen a las áreas organizadas para la producción. La ética y la
estética del trabajo se aplican al tiempo de ocio, de tal manera que se
pueden llegar a confundir los beneficios y las angustias de uno con las
del otro. Con este planteamiento, es difícil que el ocio pueda seguir
siendo la terapia del trabajo.
A finales de los años sesenta se construyó la
línea cuatro del metro de Barcelona, que unió el barrio del Poblenou con
el centro de la ciudad. En adelante, el viaje se pudo efectuar sin
tener que contemplar el escenario ruinoso de las fábricas abandonadas de
Nova Icària (ahora Villa Olímpica) ni los hangares polvorientos de las
agencias de transporte. El sentimiento general en el barrio era que ya
no se tendría que ir a Barcelona, sino que ya se estaba en ella. No
recuerdo que esto tuviera demasiado sentido para mí, pero cuando llegó
la verbena de San Juan, la hoguera que siempre habíamos hecho en el
cruce de la calle Pujadas con Lope de Vega fue prohibida por la guardia
urbana desde el mismo año de la inauguración del metro. Así, con la
llegada del metro y, en consecuencia, de la propia ciudad, también
llegaron las restricciones, algunas de ellas con cierta lógica: las
calles de adoquines y de tierra habían sido asfaltadas y, como es
sabido, el asfalto se funde con el fuego. Al año siguiente hicimos la
hoguera un poco más allá del asfalto y de la ciudad, hacia el barrio de
La Mina, en un lugar que llamábamos el Rancho Grande y que, a pesar de
su nombre, no era otra cosa que un descampado lleno de desechos y malas
hierbas. El escenario no era, sin duda alguna, tan atractivo, pero en
cambio permitía el desarrollo de una acción cuando en el lugar anterior
había dejado de ser posible.
Lewis Baltz decía que los reductos más salvajes
del mundo occidental se encuentran en la periferia de las grandes
ciudades (de hecho, la idea de parque natural implica una cierta
intervención y una larga lista de prohibiciones). Según Baltz, en los
espacios marginales que se encuentran en los límites de lo urbanizado es
donde más podemos experimentar la ausencia de orden y de las leyes
sociales que lo regulan. Algo similar a lo que Watteau nos evoca en su
famosa pintura El embarque para Citerea. En ella el pintor nos ofrece
una versión clásica del retorno a la naturaleza, con cariátides y
querubines, en un lugar profuso de vegetación y de gestos artificiosos.
Es una escena llena de ruidos y acrobacias que representa la
transformación del hombre y de la mujer cuando recuperan el paraíso
perdido del amor y de la fiesta. Los espacios marginales de las
periferias urbanas, como la isla de Citerea de Watteau, son parajes
superfluos, en los límites de lo estrictamente necesario, donde se
pueden llevar a cabo actividades tan anodinas como pasear, leer o comer
al aire libre, simplemente por el placer de la distracción sin
intermediarios.
Se puede argumentar que la ocupación de estos
espacios responde a una situación desesperada. O, como escribe Albert
Camus en El primer hombre, que a los pobres les toca vivir eternamente
rodeados de nombres (y espacios) comunes. Sin embargo, visitando las
‘catedrales’ del ocio organizado, como Isla Fantasía, Port Aventura o
Montigalà, he encontrado más placidez en los solares adyacentes
convertidos en improvisados comedores de domingo que en su interior. Da
la impresión que detrás de esta improvisación hay más de voluntad que de
accidente. Es posible, entonces, que el interés por estos espacios sea
más bien el resultado de la toma de conciencia de que la periferia es un
espacio de libertad. O dicho de otro modo, que la libertad solamente
puede surgir en un espacio residual y que, por lo tanto, puede dar una
imagen desoladora.
© Xavier Ribas (1998)
© Xavier Ribas (1998)
