Lara Almarcegui

The Aragonese artist, resident in Holland, presents a dual and complementary project in the CGAC: on the one hand, Invitation to visit the open space of Fontiñas before it is built on focuses its attention on a vast open space in Fontiñas that will soon lose its current condition and configuration when it is urbanised; on the other, Raise the ground focuses its interest on a plaza or patio situated at the rear of the CGAC building and integrated in Bonaval Park, designed by Álvaro Siza and Isabel Aguirre. In the former, with its disappearance as an open space now imminent, the artist proposes a guide (similar to those she has done in other cities, such as Lisbon, Sao Paulo, Amsterdam, etc.) that documents and provides information about the layer of abandon and nature inherent to this open, free zone before it is covered by the combined layer of design, architecture, urbanism, planning and civilisation. In the latter, the artist proposes to eliminate (as she did with the floor of Sala Montcada in Barcelona) the layer of design and perfect planning the architects carried out in the park to discover the open space below the stone slabs.

The purpose of this double project (which began with a visit by the artist at the end of January and with her proposal at the seminar on Artistic Education organised jointly by the CGAC and the Faculty of Education Science of the USC in July 2007) is to document and record an open space that is about to disappear, in other words, a space that is free from civilisation and urban design, and make a new open space appear by removing the stone floor of the patio to reveal the ‘undesigned’ space hidden below. With this dual action, the artist continues a line of work and interest associated with open, empty spaces that are free from the planning of design and which characterise the ‘anarchic urbanism’or ‘radical geography’ proposed as the representative of the citizens or parts of the public space that are either excluded from the decision making process or overlooked by ‘correct’ and ‘standard’ urbanism.

Through her work, Lara Almarcegui appears to suggest that marginality, as a real or imaginary condition that leads to practices that violate and question the hegemonic order, is one of the last areas for freeing us from the excess of integrating, standardising planning and for vindicating alternative processes for building the public space and acting in it. Accordingly, the value of her work must be understood, among many other aspects, as the questioning of the nature of art and the nature of architecture and the public area or, in other words, as the way in which she augments the condition of art, architecture and the public space through her work. By questioning the nature of art, the artist presents new proposals that not only vary the language of traditional art, but also the very matter of art itself and the way in which it is presented. By questioning the nature of the architecture of the citizen space, the artist doubts the existence of only one correct way of classifying the proposals on the activity of construction.

In her proposals, Lara Almarcegui strolls around the city and chooses certain places. She prepares guides similar to tourist guides which highlight exceptional information of public interest about the places she chooses and she gathers all kinds of information from various sources, including the stories she is told, the real situation of the people who live or walk through the spaces, the home owners’ association meetings and the architectural, botanical, sociological and historical information she obtains. In this way, she draws a new plan of the city and its places of interest, changing the focal point of the institutional advertising image to make room for everyday life.

With a project of such characteristics, the CGAC not only continues a programme associated with landscape and architecture, but also confirms its commitment to the idea of an open museum. Not only for the obvious but no less important reason of proceeding outside the walls of the CGAC, but also and above all for proceeding in the areas, situations and aspects that affect all of usas citizens and that form part of the contemporary debate. These include the questioning of art as the function and role of the museumin society; both the role of architecture in building the public imagery and the interpersonal relations it determines; both the profitability of art and its commitment to the social fabric. This project confirms the collaboration with networks for working with different institutions: the work on the waste land of Fontiñas is supported by the City Council Department of Town Planning Comission of the City Hall of Santiago de Compostela.

Manuel Olveira and Manuel Segade

Lara Almarcegui