The Santa Mònica, an artistic, climatic and sporting haven for the neighbourhood and visitors to the arts centre

• TRÀNSIT opens to the public. This artistic installation by La cuarta piel and Raquel Vázquez Romero transforms the terrace of the arts centre into a greener space to combat the urban heat.

• The centre reaffirms its commitment to sustainable culture and the use of public space as a common good, while also offering a sporting haven through the exhibition CITISSIMUM ALTISSIMUM FORTISSIMUM.

• The Santa Mònica is part of Barcelona's climate shelter network and of the community project #RavalEstiuEducatiu

With the arrival of the hot weather, the Santa Mònica opens to the public TRÀNSIT, a temporary artistic intervention that turns the terrace of the arts centre into a greener space, with areas for shade, rest and reflection. The proposal is part of the Barcelona climate shelter network and the community project #RavalEstiuEducatiu, and offers a free, cool and accessible space for the neighbourhood and visitors during the summer months.
 

TRÀNSIT is a proposal by the collective La cuarta piel, with the collaboration of architect and digital artist Raquel Vázquez Romero. Fourteen mulberry trees installed on the terrace create a true microclimate thanks to their shade and evapotranspiration, while a unique irrigation system shows the amount of water consumed by each tree and various sensors monitor the positive impact of the trees on their urban environment. In contrast to artificial or industrial solutions, the project claims trees and green spaces as the best form of shelter from the heat: sustainable, regenerative and non-polluting.

Adopting a radical take on the project's longevity, TRÀNSIT will launch a campaign, at the end of the summer, to relocate the trees in other places, such as schools or public spaces, thus extending their impact and turning the ephemeral into an opportunity for urban regeneration. The materials of the structure will also be reused and will continue their useful life in other projects.

This proposal is also part of the exhibition CITISSIMUM ALTISSIMUM FORTISSIMUM, in which the Santa Mònica explores concepts such as the body, measurement, performance and competition from a critical perspective. In this context, trees are presented as organisms highly adapted to the demands of the city, just like the bodies of elite athletes: species selected for their efficiency, shade capacity and resilience, incorporating technologies to optimise their performance and response to extreme urban conditions.

Also an artistic and sporting shelter in the Raval neighbourhood  
 

This summer, as part of the ongoing exhibition on competitive sport, CITISSIMUM ALTISSIMUM FORTISSIMUM, the Santa Mònica becomes a refuge not only from the heat, but also in artistic and sporting terms through the participatory installation Estadi, by Cabosanroque and Flexo Arquitectura. Spread out across the centre's entire courtyard, Estadi is activated when you don't score a basket or a goal, when you don't win. In this area of play and decompetition, the rules and the field are broken and modified by altering its elements.

Thus, the centre participates in the community project #RavalEstiuEducatiu and offers indoor spaces – such as Estadi, the bar area and the participatory space – and outdoor spaces such as the terrace and TRÀNSIT – for resting, connecting to Wi-Fi, reading, playing or doing sport, especially with children and young people in the neighbourhood in mind. This is the sixth edition of this Raval Community Education Group project, promoted by Fundació Tot Raval, in which an average of six hundred people take part every summer, thanks to the joint work of some forty socio-educational organisations and facilities in the neighbourhood.

With these initiatives, the Santa Mònica materialises its objectives of understanding art as a right and public space as a common good, and of advancing towards improving environmental sustainability, a commitment recognised with the Environmental Quality Assurance Label (DGQA) in the category of visual art spaces, awarded by the Ministry for Climate Action.

Visitor information:  
 

The Santa Mònica is a public arts centre, free and open to everyone.
Opening hours are Tuesday to Sunday and public holidays from 11:00 am to 8:30 pm.
It is not necessary to book in advance to visit the sports or climate shelter, but if you come in a group it is advisable to let us know in advance by email: santamonica@gencat.cat.
The use of the Estadi by the same group is for a maximum of one hour.

Communication and press contact:

Clara Bofill: cbofillp@gencat.cat / (+34) 93 554 78 61 / 677 29 21 26

Biographies  
 

La cuarta piel is an art and architecture collective formed by Iñigo Barrón (Madrid, 1995) and César Fuertes (Madrid, 1995), working at the intersection between design, research and pedagogy. It develops proposals from the ideation phase to their manufacture, with an interest in nurturing processes and encouraging various forms of collaboration. Its work approaches contemporary landscapes through situated processes, linking reflection and enjoyment. Despite its short time in existence, its projects have been presented in institutions such as CC Las Cigarreras, Centro Centro, La Casa Encendida, CCCC or IVAM and recognised with awards such as Arquia/innova ex aequo or ADI-FAD Cultura.

On this occasion, the collective has collaborated with Raquel Vázquez Romero (Madrid, 1995), an architect and 3D artist focused on investigating the relationship between digital and physical landscapes.

Cabosanroque are Laia Torrents Carulla and Roger Aixut Sampietro. Their work revolves around sound and its performative capacities. Their interventions question the exhibition space and its formats as well as the spectator when it comes to inhabiting this physical, temporal and conceptual space of vision and sound. They are interested in artifice and its relationship with humans. They look for tensions between disciplines such as music, theatre, visual arts and sound in order to open up margins, spaces in conflict. Their academic training (music, industrial engineering and architecture) leads them to use technology in all their works, always understood as a tool, as a medium and not as an aesthetic, in a continuous process of research. They often collaborate with other artists, thinkers and writers.

Flexo Arquitectura is a studio founded in 2022 by Tomeu Ramis, Aixa del Rey and Bàrbara Vich, currently under the direction of Tomeu Ramis and Aixa del Rey. Based in Barcelona, it explores any project's capacity to make sense within a specific eco-social context, using resources – both conceptual and narrative – and conditions – technical, economic and material – as opportunities from which to construct project strategies.