10/Mar/2017 - When the night falls...
On this bright sunny day I feel like sharing with you some pictures I made at night in the streets of St. Jacques.
Night is also symbolic to me and to our project - it was during the night that we first arrived to the neighbourhood. I can tell you the story, how it all began.
When we arrived to Perpignan in our truck it was already 2am, feeling tired and needing to find a place to park for free and sleep the rest of the night. No idea where to turn, we only knew about the existence of St. Jacques: we were told before this was a problematic neighbourhood, considered by some the poo,rest in France; we ended up right on it, passing by in our truck, eyes wide open, observing the atmosphere, lots of kids playing and driving around even though it was late and cold. We were wondering if we would be able to get out fast or if we would end up stuck with the truck in a narrow street. I confess this first time in St. Jacques was a bit scary, but it all went fine and we found a nice place to relax until the morning.
Today somebody told me that this pictures look like they came out of a comic book.
3/Mar/2017 - Radio Campus 66
Yesterday we attended the first "Tribune Livre" in the University of Perpignan, organized by the students association BDE UPVD and presented live and direct by the Radio Campus 66.
Poster design by Lila Erikson
We shared our visions upon our role in tomorow's society, and I took the oportunity to make some pictures of the intervenients.
8/Feb/2017 - Salle des Libertés
We went to a meeting to know more about the municipality's plans on the historic centre of Perpignan.
By talking with the citizens and spreading directional arrows we tried to promote their presence in this meeting that was called "public" but almost nobody really knew about it.
We want to thank the children in the Ludothèque Rabelais in Saint-Jacques for their help in making the arrows.
28/Jan/2017 - Perpignan Mini Maker Faire
This weekend we went to Perpignan and presented ourselves in the "Mini Maker Faire", an event for all the emerging creators.
My partner Lila Erikson presented her participatory architecture project - PARTAJACQUES - happening in the neighbourhood of St. Jaques, in Perpignan, considered by many the poorest in all France.
She gave a conference about participatory architecture, and got some enthusiastic coments on her project, and also some children who came up with ideas to improve the public spaces. Lila wrote about it here.
I will be covering this inovative process that tries to bring together the inhabitants and make them participate in the improvement of the streets where they dwell, because we believe nobody better than them to tell us what they really need, not only as individuals but as a community.
Architecure can be very disconected from the people, specially in places like this where the confidence in the institutions becomes rare, and PARTAJACQUES consists in building a communicatory bridge between the people, the inhabitants, the architects, the urban designers and the institutions; to build it with our own hands, and the ones of anybody who is interested and motivated.
Apart from this project, there are a lot of good things happening in St. Jaques. Many people fighting to change the negative image of this place and its people. I want to tell their story and support their affirmative actions.
I took this picture of a woman crossing by Place du Puig in St. Jaques early morning and I think it represents what I want to show you - the sun also shines over there. I will be documenting life in the quartier, focusing on the good happy moments, the joy of living, framing aspects that might remind us of ourselves and our own lifes, to meditate on the fact that in the end we are all the same, as it was in the beginning.
Besides all of this, I am also engaging myself into using photography as a weapon to empower kids and open them a door to communication and self-expression. I am working on this new project. I'll let you know when it's the right time for it.