EN POTENCIA L'H
A project by Mercedes Pimiento and Antonio R. Montesinos
EN POTENCIA L'H, 2021
Sculpture/device, program of activities and publication.
EN POTENCIA L'H is a program of activities in public space held in the spring of 2021 as part of the exhibition Our garden needs its flowers. Flows and artistic narratives at the Cultural District of L'Hospitalet, curated by David Armengol and Albert Mercadé at Tecla Sala Art Center. The central axis of the project is the creation of a space for debate and reflection about the role of cultural agents in the processes of gentrification and transformation of the uses of urban space in L'Hospitalet de Llobregat. Based on theoretical and conceptual tools such as those proposed by Martha Rosler in Cultural class, art and gentrification (Caja Negra, 2020), Pimiento and Montesinos invite artists, curators and workers in the cultural sector, among others, to question themselves how artistic practices could be sustainable within the environment in which they are produced: what impact has the Cultural District had on the social fabric of L'Hospitalet de Llobregat? What strategies can be carried out so that there is a cared and careful convergence between the public, the social and the artistic? EN POTENCIA L'H helps stimulate critical thinking around these issues.
The central element that acts as a trigger to activate the various encounters is a deployable device/sculpture, consisting of a series of modular structures. These modules are made with discarded or found materials, such as wood, plywood, cork or plastic, among others. Reassembled and reconverted, they take the form of urban furniture in different possibilities: chairs, tables, benches, stands... which are occupied by participants. Experimentation with the residual and the resignification processes of materials crossed by sociological, anthropological and/or artistic research are common features in the artistic practices of Pimiento and Montesinos, which now come together with the aim of generating a collaborative place of communication and exchange of knowledge.
Public space, artistic practices and sustainability. (Fragment)
Vera Renau
EN POTENCIA L'H has been possible thanks to the participation of:
David Armengol
Elena Blesa Cabez
Anna Dot
Laura Llanelli
Vera Renau
Zaida Trallero
Ateneu Cooperatiu The Collective
EASD Serra i Abella
Playful Thinking Laboratory
Sounds of Barcelona