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ZOMBIE SPACES #3 | WATERFRONT [BCN]
14-16 2016 July in Arts Santa Mònica.

Zombi Spaces # 3 doesn’t look to challenge the Barcelona waterfront’s success, but to explore the zombifying dynamics present in such space, eliciting creative ways to render them visible and speculate about possible future collaborations.

Zombi Spaces is a project that challenges the nature and consequences of the urban and social dynamics our cities are subjected as result of urban speculation, failed strategic planning, the abuse of city branding and the mercantilization of city life in general.

A zombi space is that which is defined by fragments of projects not fully realized. It’s a space which lives (not dying) in a disjointed manner, made of shards of urban projects and idealizations, albeit the efforts to prefigure as a coherent body.

A zombie space isn’t a lifeless space, it may even bee a very lively one, but a space where different forms dislocated livings get reorganized. This zombie spaces, defined by speculative rationales, public interventions driven by private interests, badly replicated foreign models, unfinished projects due to the crisis, emergence of new activities, disconnection from the place’s historic processes; paint large urban landscapes that keep functioning disfigured by many interests, completely foreign to the territory’s original dynamics.

Zombi Spaces # 3 Waterfront [BCN]

The first two versions of Zombi Spaces took place in 2013 in the Gorg area in Badalona and in 2014-2015 in Besos / Forum, both in the metropolitan area of Barcelona. These territories were seemingly marginal to the city and its more representative dynamics. These were industrial or low income housing areas, where derelict or half-built plots are the predominant feature.

In this third version of Zombi Spaces we have decided to focus in an urban space densely occupied and with a very intense social use, which for some evaluations, is an example of a successful urban space. It includes beaches, marinas, lots of space to practice sports, a seaside walk, terraces, high-end hotels, nightclubs and the Forum congress centre. It is one of the privileged spaces for tourism in Barcelona and a place for solace and to practice sports for the city’s permanent residents.

Barcelona’s waterfront has received of a great amount of urban renewal plans, architectural projects, public space activation activities, and leisure and tourism business. It is the scenery for mass sport practice, which helps building a global and dynamic image to the space. Despite this (or maybe, just because of it) there is the feeling that this space is not working for the city. The waterfront is isolated from the social dynamics of the surrounding neighbourhoods and where they interact, like in the Barceloneta, it’s by conflict. The waterfront has turned to an ultra-specialized space for the transit of tourists, doings sports and partying. For the tourists, which seem to be the majority of its users, it is also the location of a transnational party, which is happening simultaneously in many other similar places over the “global city”.

Zombi Spaces doesn’t look to challenge the  Barcelona waterfront’s success, but to explore the zombifying dynamics present in such space, eliciting creative ways to render them visible and understandable, as well as imagining possible escapes from them. For this third version of Zombi Spaces, Idensitat carries a residency in Arts Santa Mónica.


ZOMBIE SPACES # 3
14/07-15/07/2016 IDENSITAT en ARTS SANTA MÒNICA
La Rambla, 7 Barcelona

The residency consists of two parts:
Part 1. Zombi Sessions 14/07/2016-16/07/2016
Working sessions with researchers, artists and authors from multiple disciplines who have worked around the social and urban dynamics related to the zombi space concept.
Part 2. Project Development 14/07/2016 - 18/07/2016
Elaboration of diverse visual and graphic elements about Barcelona’s waterfront. These elements have the objective of constitute the material that will be presented in a future exhibit. For the preparation of this material we will count with the collaboration of some of the participants in the working sessions.

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Zombi Sessions

14/07/2016 from 18.00 to 20.00h. Zombi transdiscipline.   Debate with Jorge Fernández Gonzalo, philosopher and author; Domènc, artist; Félix Pérez-Hita, filmmaker, screenwriter  and editor.

15/07/2016 from 10.00 to 19.00h. Zombi session. Work and debate session with María Buigas, architect;  Inés de Rivera, architect;  Jorge Fernández Gonzalo, philosopher and writer; Francesc Magrinyà, urban planner;  Xavi Camino, anthropologist; Marta Carranza, degree in Physical Activity and Sports Sciences and Psychology; Javier Pérez Andújar, writer; Ingrid Guardiola, teacher and cultural production; Francesc Muñoz, urban geographer; Daniel Ramirez Corzo, anthropologist; Gaspar Maza, anthropologist; Ramon Parramon, Idensitat's director and artist.

To attend these debates should write a mail This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. specifying particular interest.

16/07/2016 from 10.00 to 19.00h. In-house workshop to define an analysis and production methodology, applicable to other zombified spaces.

15/07/2016 from 10.00 a 19.00h
10.00-10.30 / Presentation.
Idensitat works and the Zombi Spaces program. Ramon Parramon
¿Barcelona’s waterfront as a zombie space? Daniel Ramírez Corzo
10.30-11.30 / Table 1: Zombi Bodies .
Zombi culture and public space.
Jorge Fernandez
Comments: Gaspar Maza
Questions and conversation
11.30 Pause
12.00-13.30 / Table 2: Zombi Urbanism “Zombi”
Urban geographies: waterfronts and other zombie spaces.
Francesc Muñoz
The Barcelona brand as a zombie project. María Buigas
Comments: Inés de Rivera Questions and conversation
14.00 Lunch
16.00-17.30 / Table 3: Zombi Economy.
Sports in the waterfront.
Xavi Camino
Tourismin at the waterfront. Francesc Magrinya
Comments: Marta Carranza Questions and conversation
17.30 Pausa
17.30-19.00 / Mesa 4: Zombies Representations .
Barcelona’s waterfront as lived space. Javier Pérez Andújar
New memories from the zombie city. Ingrid Guardiola
Comments: Ramón Parramón Questions and conversation

These sessions are work encounters to think, debate and try to put together a methodology and an action model, applicable to different contexts. There are invited researchers and artists who have worked about social and urban dynamics related to the zombi space concept. Albeit the discussion will focus in the Barcelona’s waterfront as case study and laboratory, it does not limit itself to it, leaving open the opportunity to wider visions o those, which, from different perspectives, bring new ideas to the debate.

The objectives of the sessions are to share the advances on the zombi spaces project as a multidisciplinary and artistic research; further collectively on the ideas about the zombification processes approaching critically the usefulness of the concept for analysis and production; and finally, to establish the ideas and perspectives that should be taken in account in future projects and activities.

The first part of the sessions consists of an open debate. The second part is organized in four consecutive tables stretching over a full working day. Each table will put together one or two main presentations from our guests and a commentator. Each table will be followed by a flexible time for questions and debate with the audience.


Zombi Spaces 3 on TV show La Aventura del Saber: 

Read and download the dossier of complementary readings: 

 

Supported by Ajuntament de Barcelona, Generalitat de Catalunya and with the collaboration of Arts Santa Mònica.