What money cannot buy
La Pedrera’s seasonal lighting is taken as an opportunity for critical reflection on the commodification of Christmas and the contemporary political situation in Catalonia, blurring the boundaries between architecture, art and activism.
This installation responds to the commission to design the Christmas lighting of La Pedrera, one of Antoni Gaudí's most important and popular works. The proposal starts from an intensive study of the building: The architecture, the history, and its place in contemporary Barcelona. The study allowed us to qualify and quantify the enormous visibility of the main facade both on a local and global scale. Every day, tens of thousands of passers-by pass in front of it and thousands of visitors take photos that they share on their social networks.
The facade of La Pedrera is, in fact, a global screen, probably the most visible in Barcelona.
On the other hand, La Pedrera is in the heart of Passeig de Gràcia, the place where the most luxurious commercial establishments in the city are concentrated.
These two conditions were revealed to us as an opportunity to generate, through this large global screen, a debate about the great contradictions of the Christmas holidays in a capitalist society like ours.
The superimposition on the curves of the facade of a virtual inclined plane that contains words representing the traditional values of Christmas interspersed with the action "buy" generates a proposal for debate that, like Calligram, is disseminated daily, spontaneously and massively all over the planet via the internet.
The facade of La Pedrera is, in fact, a global screen, probably the most visible in Barcelona.
On the other hand, La Pedrera is in the heart of Passeig de Gràcia, the place where the most luxurious commercial establishments in the city are concentrated.
These two conditions were revealed to us as an opportunity to generate, through this large global screen, a debate about the great contradictions of the Christmas holidays in a capitalist society like ours.
The superimposition on the curves of the facade of a virtual inclined plane that contains words representing the traditional values of Christmas interspersed with the action "buy" generates a proposal for debate that, like Calligram, is disseminated daily, spontaneously and massively all over the planet via the internet.
2018 - 2019
MEATS (Roger Paez, Toni Montes +
Ihab Al Baraki, Sara Bhaty, Luís Cabrera, Elise Chukri, Estefanía Cortés, Partitosh Hatolkar, Amira Ihab, Ridhima Malhotra, Camille Moins, Mariana Magalhaes, Anna Piliugina, Èrica Soler, Jessica Tallabas, Nieves Torbado, Lijing Wang.)
CUBE.BZ (Maria de la Cámara, Gabi Paré)
FUNDACIÓ CATALUNYA LA PEDRERA (Lluís Farrés)
MEATS (Roger Paez, Toni Montes +
Ihab Al Baraki, Sara Bhaty, Luís Cabrera, Elise Chukri, Estefanía Cortés, Partitosh Hatolkar, Amira Ihab, Ridhima Malhotra, Camille Moins, Mariana Magalhaes, Anna Piliugina, Èrica Soler, Jessica Tallabas, Nieves Torbado, Lijing Wang.)
CUBE.BZ (Maria de la Cámara, Gabi Paré)
FUNDACIÓ CATALUNYA LA PEDRERA (Lluís Farrés)
