Manifesta Urchins Making

Tres Xemeneies in 1975 from city archive

The Urchins

Workshop announcement by Manifesta 15 Barcelona Metropolitana

The Museum of the History of Immigration of Catalonia (MHIC) produces and hosts the exhibition Sant Adrià. La fàbrica de la llum.

The Urchins - Making

Crochet and Assembly Volunteers

Palmira Ruiz Clavijo

Rafi Rodríguez Arellano

Olga Dominguez Garcia

Flavia Onofre

Marina Bueno Arrufat

Mar Ibern

Ana Fernández

Griselda Andujar

Marta de Caralt

Roser Castillo

Montserrat Martínez Santos

Júlia Sanchez Casals

Eva Anna Ferrando Miguel

Juana Calderón Pimentel

Amada Sumonte

Eulalia Ubach

Marta Blasco

Cecilia Mealla

Annemarike van Egmond

Ivet Herrero

Raquel Zurita

Odet Chavez

Laura Lista Bravo

Aitziber Roldan Mitxelena

Natalia López

Susanne Hergenhahn

Marta Sancosmed

Heike Bersch

Teresa Aparici

Laia Mitjà

Laura Díaz-Benito

Marcela Santa Cruz

Abril alcaide

Leonie Frauenfeld

Isabel Calvo

Macarena Soto Araya

Aleksandra Repina

Beatriz Rodriguez Romero

Halimeh Habib Diñeiro

Olimpia de la Rosa

María Fernanda Jaikel

María Jesús Calderón

Montse Estruch Casagolda

Sònia Torner

Rosa Angela Galindo Zarco

Núria Parera Junyent

Montserrat Gil Estaban

Mariana Ahumada

Gemma Vidal Martínez

Maria Felip Segu

Jin Choi

Consol Cuadra

Nuria Gambau

Candela Faure Rodriguez

Esther Beneitez

Celia Torres

Ona Gil Trallero

Lorena Macías

Halle Gerboc

Martina Otero Jeandrevin

Malvina Tessitore

Marta Cuervo López

Fernanda Zanuzzi

Ana Julia Hernandez Bravo

Marta Cuervo López

Danae Vara

Arlet Malowney

Montse Amargós

Angelita Hernández

Lidia Arboix

Constanza González Torm

Nieves(Neus) Ilzarbe Díaz

Luisa Santiago

Lisa Kukushkina

Cristina Barastegui Bagetnenalanasdiy

Sara Alcon

Susana Planas

Paola Hernández

Montserrat Ferrús

Silvia san agustin morralla

Eva Molina

Mertxi Sans

Luciana leveratto

Lisa Fuksma

María Camila Pabon

Esteve Cruanyes

Luis Jimenez

Nina Borghi Recoder

Annamarie Giacomelli

Odet Chavez

Esther Paris Olmedo

Mariana Ahumada

Tere Santiago

Marcela Santa Cruz

Núria Parera Junyent

Margarita Andrade

Josep Aparici

Maribel Perpiña de Lama

Julia Sirés Campos

Margarita Cobos

Soco Varea Gonzalez

Devi Estrada

Patricia Recoder Amaral

Lola Rodríguez Sánchez

María Alfonsina Margherit

Rosanna Mollica

Annamaria Giacomelli

Pietra Morales Bernardis

ROT ROJO

Marisa Garnelo

Andrea acosta

Lisa Mur

Jorgina Martínez Serra

Lana Mayra

Sara Espinosa

Bruna Scopel

Anna Zuñiga Ruiz

Meritxell Vilalta

Teresa Canal García

Elizaveta Kukushkina

Iona Chinwendu Ekechukwu

Silvina Acosta Cabrera

Teresa Santiago

Corali Szielasko

Claudia Ordonez

Montserrat Tresanchez Gonzalez

Josep Mayos Cantos

Georgina Surià Gúdel

Filipa Oliveira

Bernat Bastardas

João Jóia Paulo

Mercedes De Jesus

Thomas Shine

Yohan Creemers

Juan carlos gonyalons

This project aims to embrace, honour and strengthen the Tres Xemeneies (Three Chimneys)* as the monuments* of the Industrial past of Catalonia and Barcelona - in particular, the textile and lace making industry in the area, fishing industries, the history of the struggle in labor conditions and women’s demonstration against pollution - while re-establishing the relationship with the sea and reclaiming the land for the future generation.

*Tres Xemeneies have a long, complicated past that led to them being abandoned and almost torn down. Locals objected to the station’s construction, disliking its appearance as much as the environmental implications. When workers building the station in 1973 went on strike in a bid for better working conditions, the police responded with lethal force, killing one of the workers. Decades later, the company managing the site would go to court over accusations of black rain and pollution. The plant shut down in 2011, and the company that owned it wanted to tear it down and get rid of the structure that had caused so many issues. But oddly enough, the locals had grown attached to it. A local coalition even formed in a bid to save the towers as a monument to the workers who built it. The company gave the property to the local government in 2015 after years of lawsuits and tension. Now, these chimneys are a monument to the people who built them; a symbol of something unwanted but summarily accepted and treasured for its complicated past....Looking up at these imposing feats of engineering, it’s no wonder why locals refer to them as “la Sagrada Familia de los obreros,” or “the Sagrada Familia of the workmen.” (Atlas Obscura)

*as symbol of the city's industrial past; as a symbol of the worker origin of the great majority of its population, and of its emigrant origin; as a symbol of conflict, of labor struggles and the anti-Franco struggle; as a symbol of the neighborhood mobilizations that fought against the pollution of the plant; as a symbol of the first local referendum - the one in 2008, which was favorable to the conservation of the Three Chimneys - called by a town council in Spain. Les Tres Xemeneies is the symbol and the best monument of tribute to the worker on strike who was shot dead by the police in 1973, Manuel Fernández Márquez (the most serious event of the Francoist repression in Sant Adrià de Besòs). And it is also a tribute to those women who demonstrated in the sixties against pollution, against that black dust that soiled their clothes....we find that in the metropolitan area the Three Chimneys, as an energy symbol of the second industrial revolution, dialogue with the Foster Tower, symbol of the third. The strong presence of the Three Chimneys in the Barcelona landscape has given it epithets such as the Candlesticks of the Besòs, the Sagrada Família de l'Electricitat, the Cathedral of the Besòs or the Sagrada Família (or the Cathedral) of the poor. (20240111_3X_ history_provided by Manifesta 15)

Manifesta Biennial

Barcelona, Spain

Sant Adriá de Besòs

September-November 2024

Design

Jin Choi and Thomas Shine

Structural Design

Thomas Shine

Frame fabrication

Anton Der Kinderen

Thomas Shine

Edward Shine

Marcel Górlikowski

Noah Tanis

Installation

Marc Sala Audet

Manifesta staff and Volunteers

Special thanks to:

Hedwig Fijen

Filipa Oliveira

Tatiana Tarragó

Núria Marquès

Georgina Surià Gúdel

Maria Elisa

Bernat Bastardas

The work consists of large scale lace Urchins, placed at the iconic Tres Xemeneies. The creatures of the sea meet the polluted site of a disused thermal power plant and re-imagine sustainable co-habitation for the future.

Generally, lace is used as a symbol for a special celebration, milestones of life. Lace Urchins celebrates the rebirth of the industrial heritage and the inauguration of the abandoned industrial site as a civic space.

Photos from Lace Collection at the Museu Marès de la Punta located in Arenys de Mar, 40km from Barcelona.

Echinoidea rom Ernst Haeckel's Kunstformen der Natur (Art forms of Nature) of 1904

Lace Collection at the Museu Marès de la Punta.

Photos from MUHBA Bon Pastor,

The museum of housing in Barcelona

The translucency and intricacy of the lace often provokes femininity and lends a false sense of vulnerability and fragility. The lace has indeed been traditionally created by female artisans who endured long hours of arduous labor and meticulous attention to detail it required; lace manifests the patience, resilience and tenacity of the maker.

Sea urchin shells, enclosed yet light weight are delicate and open. Their textured and permeable surface interacting with light creates openness, while the pattern’s mathematical repetition brings visual rhythm and harmony. Against light, the sea urchin natural form reveals one of the most spectacular patterns found in nature.

The project mimics this orderly, repetitive pattern and soft forms, achieving a visual harmony from the contrast between nature and the man-made environment, and between the masculine Brutalist concrete plant and the hovering feminine object.

The lace symbolically weaves different people and cultures. Traditionally, lace revealed the divided class society; it was created by poor artisans and enjoyed by the rich clienteles for their excess. This project aspires to bring everyone together regardless of their origin, age, socio-economical and political status; all contributes to the making, sharing the ownership of the project.

The patterns learned from ‘Point of Catalonia’ and ‘Punta de Barcelona’ are incorporated into the lace, creating a repetitive mathematical geometry which provokes one’s search for the recognisable and leads to the meditative journey.

The lace for this project was handmade with local volunteers, which makes the process of making art as important and meaningful as its final outcome. Through Manifesta 15’s network and its educational department’s outlet, over 130 volunteers gathered to contribute. The project reached out to Barcelona’s marginalized residents, immigrants with different origins, low income families, elderly citizens and under-represented female population to make lace together. Once the lace was complete, the individual pieces were assembled at La Mina, one of the most under-privileged neighboorhoods in Barcelona.

Making of lace sharpens their minds while making new neighbors. Handmade lace elevates the old craft into the art while connecting everyone involved with the shared vision.

Photos Manifesta 15 & Choi+Shine

The project set the digital platform where everyone could share the questions and answers, progress and encouragements. The platform witnessed incredible creativity and kindness from the community: urgent trouble shooting solutions, careful discussions about the design, and thoughtful tips and help shared among volunteers.

Through the process, the volunteers bonded closely and created a true sense of community, while everyone shared ownership of the work to achieve a single goal: to create a beautiful work together.

Skills learned from generations before connected us with memories from the past and also with the people from the area whom we had never known.

“I am volunteering because with my work,

I can contribute to the beauty of the world.”

- Annamarie Giacomelli

“I am usually a little scared of making mistakes. During this project, I did it, then undid it so many times. After that, I am not afraid to make mistakes anymore.

I am fearless now. This project changed me.”

- Flavia Onofre

“It is about high time that something is done in this area - I live 10 minutes from here. It is my pleasure to be part of this. I never thought with this thread, in this scale, things like this is possible. ”

- Iona Chinwendu

Seeing their own work presented as a part of an important biennial, the historical opening of the Tres Xemeneies as a cultural public space, offered a sense of pride, empowering everyone involved.

As with all of our public artworks, the Urchins in Barcelona were the act of cooperation, with people being a center of creation. It was the art of process, with the final work as a symbol of this collective endeavor. What is important and meaningful was the friendship created, the enduring bonds of togetherness that crossed cultural, political and socio-economical boundaries. It is a most powerfully resonating form of art, where the public is elevated from a distant audience to a creator.

Photo Manifesta 15

To the installation…