siluroño
Logroño | 2022-2023Pour Concéntrico festival
Wallonie-Bruxelles Architectures
Avec Pool is Cool
Siluroño“ is not about the fish or fishing. It’s about stories that shape the mental map of citizens about public space or certain areas of a city.
These stories are often nothing more than prejudices, urban myths that someone heard of someone, rarely based on facts. However, they are a strong determinator of how people think about their environment, usually with a negative connotation, in the form of stigmata. About places that are unsafe, places that are expensive, places that are dirty, places that are inaccessible, places that are „owned“ by certain communities, places that are boring or places that are overcrowded or „only for the tourists“. As vague and imprecise they are, as important is their impact on the habits of people and subsequently the use and appropriation of public space and even urban developments in general, often with social and financial consequences.
Water is an exemplary case, often deemed polluted and unsafe. During our stay in Logroño and our research along the river Ebro, the ‚siluro‘ (catfish) played an important role in the image that people have of the river. Mostly depicted as a monster that eats everything (but that nobody has ever seen as such, only on social media), it became for us the symbol of our project that wants to question the role of the Ebro for the citizens of Logrono and the image they have of their river.
After being built, catching attention and awareness, the installation is activated throughout the festival week with a series of events and gatherings about the river, the water, public space.
Material used to build Siluroño were dismantled from an installation built for concentrico festival the year before by PioveneFabi : https://concentrico.es/medio-vacio-luna-llena/
photos 2 © collectif dallas - pool is cool
photos 3,4,15,16 © Josema Cutilla
photos 5-7, 17-21 © Concéntrico festival