My Barcelona
Here is a small window into the world of the final presentation day at PlantaUno, reflecting on our past month of experiences in Barcelona as part of the cultural management residency, SURES.
We residents each prepared a dish from our regions, Maylee from Peru with the first course of causa limeña, me with the second of tacos de barbacoa (a special recipe of my mother-in-law), and for dessert of obleas by Ximena from Colombia.
Everyone loved the food and couldn't stop talking about the tacos and that I thank my mother-in-law for the delicious recipe. The tequila reserve was even opened!
Below is what I wrote for my presentation.
My Barcelona
God gave me a good dose of nostalgia as an innate trait and I already think of the saudade, as the Portuguese say, I am going to have about my time here when I part for home. I feel sentimental.
You opened a world to us otherwise impossible to access on our own.
The kind, welcoming beautiful people of PlantaUno, Transit Projects, Maylee, and Ximena will always be first in my mind as well as the incredible people they connected us with. You have built an innovative one-of-a-kind opportunity for the SURES residents. The people I have connected with and places I have been fortunate to see and study has given me a fountain of inspiration to take back with me the border region between the United States and Mexico.
This residency started with magic on my first evening in the city I was invited to join Edu, Ximena, and Maylee to visit the Joan Miro Foundation on the monthly free museum night.
For me, it is always about the people, and meeting these immediate new friends was a delight, especially considering the circumstances of why we were there - a one-of-a-kind cultural management residency and the beautiful surroundings on the top of Mont Juic. What a distinct contrast it was from where I come from.
The evening continued down the funicular and I was given one of my most important new tools, the T-Usal month pass from Barcelona’s Metro thanks to Edu’s experience navigating the process of extracting it from the machine.
Without realizing it, we were following the same route as the bastaixos who helped construct the Cathedral del Mar.
We cut through the curving streets of the old town first stopping at Bar Marsella where I tried my first absinthe and took in all the five senses of the iconic bar. The curling decayed wall paint, the stickiness, the scent of anise, I’ve been transported to another time and place.
Cultural resilience rather than resistance is an idea I have formed with time here as well as the following concepts:
Inspiration
Sense of Place
Nostalgia
I leave with a fire in my heart and an inspiration in my soul to take the most advantage of this residency back with me to where I live.
Conclusion
This was an experience of living there, cultivating real meaningful relationships with people, and having the opportunity to explore different models and dynamics in the field that caught my attention, cultural tourism.
Although Barcelona experiences overwhelming mass tourism and a difficult relationship exists between the city and this great source of economic activity, I found a flipside exploring and following the advice of one of the buttons we were given, #periferiascomocentros (“the outskirts as centers”).
I came here with a project that has to do with borders and how that conception is more fluid than firm. Being here, I have experienced other borders that have fascinated me the Catalan and the Castillian, the migrant and the local, the touristed and non-touristed realms. And the process of passing from unfamiliar to familiar.
A special thank you to Erika Tamaura of NodePoint US, Àngel Mestres, Edu Bernal, JoseJu Morales, Julia Magem, #plantauno, and Transit Projectes, for making me a part of this experience and their amazing support.