Fringes. The landscapes of the periphery
Peripheries act as fringes, interfaces between different geographical realities and landscape configurations. They are not only the unforeseen and undesired result of a centre that is growing and needs to expand, with no regard to where or how. The periphery is more than just the perimeter of a centre; it is also, and above all, a threshold between different territorial (and sometimes mental) realities, with increasing prominence. Too often, peripheries are untidy, unfinished landscapes with negative connotations for the town of which they form part. As the European Landscape Convention states, this has repercussions on social well-being, since quality of life is directly linked to the quality of the landscape. To understand the logic and the idiosyncrasy of peripheries requires a great variety of gazes, from art to literature, from music to cinema, from photography to architecture, from geography to sociology, from town planning to ecology. To act in the periphery, we need a substantial change in the space and time scale to which we are accustomed, and we need to understand that its social and symbolic (and even landscape) yardsticks are different. The gaze towards the town from the periphery is unusual, but enormously suggestive, because it offers us guidelines for interpreting contemporaneity that are difficult to perceive from the centre. From the interdisciplinary perspective and the openness to new ideas that have characterised the activity of the Landscape Observatory of Catalonia since its beginnings, on this occasion we intend to place ourselves, in collaboration with the RECEP-ENELC and the Institut de Cultura de la Ciutat d'Olot, at the very heart of the periphery, and these hybrid fringes that act as thresholds will serve us to put forward new forms of intervention and management, new landscape yardsticks, and new alternative readings to the usual hegemonic ones.
Thursday, 11th November 2010
- Lluís SACREST, major of Olot
- Oriol Porcel, director of the European Network of Local and Regional Authorities for the implementation of of the European Landscape Convention (RECEP-ENELC)
- Montserrat MALLOL, directora of Olot Museums
- Joan NOGUÉ, director of the Landscape Observatory of Catalonia
- Piero ZANINI, architect and researcher of the Laboratory of Architecture and Anthropology of the Paris-La Villette National School of Architecture
Thurday 11th. BLOCK 1 From the fringes
The contemporary periurban space seen from the periphery
- Xerardo ESTÉVEZ, architect and town planner
- Daniela COLAFRANCESCHI, architect, PhD in Architectural Design and lecturer in Landscape Architecture at the Mediterranean University of Reggio Calabria
- Toni SALA, writer and teacher of Catalan literature
- Moderated by Joan NOGUÉ, director of the Landscape Observatory of Catalonia
Thursday 11th . Block 2 - Detecting the fringes
What tools do we have to analyze peripheral landscapes? How can we find out about them? How can we study them? How can we capture the essence?
- Francesc MUÑOZ, director of the Urban Planning Observatory and the Master in Landscape Management for Land Use and Environmental planning of the Autonomous University of Barcelona
- Pere GRIMAU, artist, Observatori Nòmada de Barcelona
- Aurora FERNÁNDEZ POLANCO, art critic and tenured lecturer in the Department of Contemporary Art of the Complutense University of Madrid
- Xavier VICENTE , singer in the group El Nota
Moderated by Pere SALA, Technical Coordinator of the Landscape Observatory of Catalonia
Friday 12th. Block 3 - Acting in the fringes
Concrete proposals for the development and management of contemporary urban peripheries. The project in the landscapes of the periphery. Social interventions in peripheral spaces through art.
- Pere SALA, technical Coordinator of the Landscape Observatory of Catalonia
- Ignasi ALDOMÀ, department of Geography and Sociology. University of Lleida
- Fabio MANFREDI, Mediterranean University of the city of Reggio Calabria
- Francesco VALLERANI, lecturer in Geography in Ca' Foscari University of Venice
- Joan VILA-PUIG and Elvira PUJOL, Sitesize
- Xavier BALLAZ and Eduard CRESPO, Col·lectiu DIFUSOR, group for artistic expression in public spaces
Moderated by Daniela COLAFRANCESCHI, architect, PhD in Architectural Design and lecturer in Landscape Architecture at the Mediterranean University of Reggio Calabria
Visit to the premises of the future Landscape Museum. Guided tour of the group photography exhibition on the landscapes of the periphery. Presentation of the future Landscape Museum of Catalonia by Montserrat MALLOL and Carme MARTINELL
Languages of the Seminar
The seminar will be held in Catalan, Spanish and Italian, without simultaneous translation.
Registration
The registration period will open on September 15th.
Parallel Activities
- Group photography exhibition on the landscapes of the periphery at the Museu Comarcal de la Garrotxa , by Jordi Bernadó, Albert Gusi, Aleix Plademunt, Rafael-López Munné, Llorenç Rosanes. November-December 2010.
- Exhibition in the courtyard of the Hospici on contemporary public space in the Italian regions of** Calabria and Sicily**, by Fabio Manfredi.
- Large-format photographs of the periphery of Huesca at the Casal Marià, by Lorenzo Ordás.
- Exhibition of photographs by students of the course on landscapes of the periphery, taught by Tino Soriano, at Can Trincheria. Organised by the Fundació d'Estudis Superiors d'Olot and the Landscape Observatory of Catalonia. November 2010.
- Screening of the film “Petit Indi”, by Marc Recha, in collaboration with CineClub Olot. 12 November 2010.
- Collaboration of the Àrea de Creació Contemporània with the exposition “Utourism Utopism”, of Marcel Dalmau, at the Espai Zero1, and the exposition “Latifundi”, based in the perception of the urban space from the point of view of the children (Sala 15). September-November 2010.