Barcelona is a city in constant movement and evolution. The transformation of a city can be very quick and subtle, and one fine day you realise that you no longer live in the same place you used to live just a short while ago, or maybe you do? The passage of time and movement leave marks, they leave scars, ones that simulate the people that live there. Many scars have their charm, they tell a story, but others are a nuisance for those of us who experience them. Very often they go unnoticed, like the first wrinkles that appear on your face, others are too big to ignore.
The city is grey, the marks of time also: we give them protagonism, we give a voice to the pavement. Walking through different parts of my city, Barcelona, I see more or less what I'm talking about, and since I began this work, my sight has become more acute in finding imperfections and seeking possible solutions to improve the appearance of public spaces in different ways, on terms that I think are an improvement. Fill the gaps aims to put sticking plasters on corners and cracks in the Barcelona pavement, to complete the urban jigsaw with the addition of a social and colourful version of the construction material par excellence: concrete. The project does not seek to challenge urban deterioration, but rather to place the emphasis on imperfections and offer the chance to construct and reconstruct our city.
The initiative infiltrates the pavement on poor condition in Barcelona in the form of colours. The project emerges horizontally, using the resources offered by the city itself, materials intended for recycling. Glass is a good binder for cement, it improves its properties and enables us to reduce the extraction of raw materials and the amount of energy used for recycling. But above all, it lets us turn the project into something belonging to everyone. The glass thrown away by the community will be used to create this material that will enable us to solve the imperfections of our city.
Fill the gaps contradicts the standardisation of constructions in the urban landscape.
The project also aims to make the people who live in the city to feel it more closely in a visual and creative way, emphasising the possibilities of protest action that help us design our own reality in favour of the people of the city.
Ester Casademont - Fill the gaps
Ester Casademont - Fill the gaps
Ester Casademont - Fill the gaps
Ester Casademont - Fill the gaps