The bridge is a recurring image in the Barcelona-Madrid relationship. There are metaphorical bridges that are so well established that they are almost structural, such as Iberia or the Liber publishing fair, which has been held alternately in the two cities since 1983. And there are other less lasting ones that fail to take hold on the ground , as it happens with field bridges in wars. In 2023, one will be released that, if things are done well, could last: for the first time, the Barcelona City and Science Biennial will celebrate some of its activities in the Spanish capital.
The decision has been made within the framework of the cultural and scientific co-capital agreement, reactivated by the Government of Pedro Sánchez and the Ada Colau City Council after it has been hibernating for a decade.
Barcelona receives 20 million euros per year for this concept, with the aim of supporting local institutions whose activity is projected throughout the State and abroad. The Pla Barcelona Ciència would be framed in this context, which includes biennials and was promoted by Joan Subirats when the now minister was still in the Colau government team.
In the absence of specifying the program and dates of the third edition of the biennial (it will be held in February), it has been determined that the headquarters of the Madrid activities will be the Círculo de Bellas Artes, a historic private non-profit entity.
Led by its director, Valerio Rocco, the Circle has maintained frequent contact with Catalan institutions in recent years. The Ateneu Barcelonès is one of them, as are the people and entities that are part of the emerging art, technology and science scene in the Catalan capital.
In addition to the Circle, the Barcelona City Council's interlocutor in the capital for this project is the Ministry of Science. The general director of the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology (FECYT). Imma Aguilar is a regular on the AVE: she usually attends events in Barcelona where art and science converge, such as the Sónar Festival.
The biennial program is not yet complete, but there are teams of curators who work together preparing the events in Barcelona and Madrid, explains the City Council's Science delegate, Júlia Miralles de Imperial. In her opinion, it is about getting two scientific powers such as Madrid and Barcelona to work collaboratively, beyond the work that the Government of Sánchez in the Catalan capital can develop in this area.
This opening to new cities has just been tested during the Biennial of Thought, which has triangulated between Barcelona, Valencia and Palma de Mallorca.
The Madrid City Council has also offered to build cultural bridges with Barcelona. Last week it opened an exhibition on Antoni Gaudí in its CentroCentro room, in front of the Cibeles, in which numerous Catalan institutions collaborate, including the Barcelona City Council.
But, in terms of dialogue between the two cities, the exhibition that will open its doors on Thursday in the same room is even more relevant. It is about Underground and counterculture in the Catalonia of the 70s, co-produced with the Generalitat after its successful run at the Palau Robert, where it received more than 60,000 visitors.
The exhibition is curated by the founder of the Ajoblanco magazine, Pepe Ribas, and by Canti Casanovas, creator of the Web sense nom. Of the many possible readings of his work, there is one that strikes down some preconceived schemes about the cultural flows between the two capitals. Because the conclusion reached by its creators is that Madrid was significantly present in the underground Barcelona of the 1970s and that artists and thinkers from the Catalan capital actively participated in the success of Madrid's Movida.
So neither was the capital of Spain a creative desert in the transition from dictatorship to democracy, nor was Barcelona in decline when in the 1980s the spotlights of Madrid's Rockola were turned on and the echoes of Laietana music faded.
It is necessary that time elapses to have more precise information and assess the evolution of cities, but it can already be ventured that any commitment to collaborative culture will have more significance than refusing to cross the bridge.
