Page 218 - Únete. Join us (Bienal de Venecia, 57 edición)

218 ¡ÚNETE! JOIN US! JORDI COLOMER
IV. Vandalizing interlude
Worthy of separate mention are people who act alone, in a fit of rage, and here I’m thinking of young Ciara P. from Rome, Italy, who had been feeling disappointed in her country for a number of years, particularly since she had started losing sleep over it. That’s why one night, in the wee hours of the morning, fed up with not being able to catch any sleep on account of the noise from the streets, she decided to go ride her motorbike up and down the famous Spanish Steps at the Piazza di Spagna. Up and down the steps she went several times, vandalizing the already rather age-worn, poorly preserved steps. Upon being asked what was her motivation, she explained: “I did it so now tourists don’t need to do it anymore! This way they will all leave us alone for a while!”. She lost her driving license, but gained a whole night’s sleep, just for once.
Further damage: A Russian tourist hurls a cup at the Gioconda in August. In Tarragona, Spain, out of sheer boredom, a youngster graffitied Visca el Barça (“Long live FC Barcelona”) onto a Neolithic dolmen and then took a selfie. These instances of vicious savagery against the past, whether motivated by ignorance or revolt, must also feature in our Apparitions Theatre. Neglect though is a less visceral, undetected kind of violence that may also alter our environment—which brings me to forsaken spaces that fell out of use and we now try to salvage.
V. The initiates’ park
In 2010 the Berlin City Council launched an Open Call for Ideas to find new uses for Tempelhof Airport, which, owing to its central location within the German capital, could not be expanded and was therefore no longer profitable. Proposals included ideas such as:
1. Using the area for relocating the film studios in Babelsberg.
2. Building a healthcare centre with emergency air ambulances
3. Setting up an open, safe, zone for legalized prostitution.
4. Erecting a 1,000 metre high mount by piling up rubble, allowing
for magnificent views.
On Facebook, the proponent of option 3 admitted it was merely a provocation in the face of the absolute lack of imagination exhibited by most other projects which—save for the above mentioned proposals— did indeed contemplate nothing beyond housing, office buildings and facilities of different kinds.
Fortunately, all such development plans were forestalled by the referendum which an ecologically- inspired citizen action group managed to initiate, after gathering the required number of signatures in less than a week. Their goal was to maintain Tempelhof as it was, as a completely open and undeveloped park space for the enjoyment of all citizens. “The government were never very keen on this park. They built nothing in it, thinking that would discourage people from coming and eventually everyone would forget about it. It worked the other way round: what the two million people coming to this park each year are looking for is precisely that: nothing built here, and that’s