History Workshop

The work processes of the CICdB are organized around the History Workshop, a space for participation and collective organization open to former residents of the barracas of L’Hospitalet, as well as to all those interested in the collective restitution of the memory of the places they inhabited. The workshop is not only a place to talk about the stories of these neighborhoods, but it also serves as an informal meeting point (and sometimes a place to reunite with old friends); it is a place where we listen closely, collaborate, and make decisions to organize actions aiming at spreading this memory.

These dynamics contribute to the emergence of specific work proposals that are discussed and developed collectively with the support of LaFundició. Since its launch in 2015, the CICdB History Workshop has given rise to the following projects and lines of work:

• Archive: An archive intended as a dialogic and performative device that operates under informal logics and archiving modes.

• Rromano kidipen: Rromano kidipen can be translated from Rromano as a “rroma cultural encounter”, a meeting to chat and share memories and knowledges linked to the rroma community of La Cadena, one of the former informal settlements in L’Hospitalet.

 

• Routes: Since the beginning of the CICdB project, several routes have been organized around the land occupied by the current Economic District of L’Hospitalet, in which the neighborhoods of La Bomba and La Cadena were located. The routes connect the past of the territory with its present, linking the memory with a genealogy of the current landscape.

• Future monument to La Bomba residents: A project for the installation of a water pump in the place where the entrance to the missing district of La Bomba was located, in front of the current Gran Via 2 Mall Route 2. The everyday and functional nature of the intervention points at the relation between memory and monumentality.

• CICdB Bulletins: Publications in newspaper format narrating the history of the disappeared shantytowns, written by their protagonists.

• La Sardinada: Reunion of former neighbors of La Bomba, Can Pi, La Cadena and La Sangonera. The reunion showcases the progress of the History Workshop and develops various initiatives to deepen and expand our lines of work: mapping, archiving, interviews, etc.

• Barraca: A community space dedicated to the understanding and practice of the city through informality. An architectural and urban planning laboratory to experiment with the constructive practices and the informal ways of making a city, particularly with the possibility of autonomous decision-making over the environment and the ways of modifying it based on the needs of the communities.

• CICdB Exhibition: Can Pi, La Bomba, La Cadena, La Sangonera: Exhibition opened in 2018 in the Museum of L’Hospitalet showing the collective work processes developed for three and a half years in the CICdB project. The exhibition was accompanied by a program of talks and parallel activities in order to extend the debates launched from the CICdB project.