LE MONDE

Colera, Portbou and Cerbère are allegories of a frenetic modern time, that came to fade. What would one think of its languor, and should we wish for this idle land to regain some activity ? Maybe we could plan to restore the flamboyance of the cumbersome logistics industry it once was, or maybe it could benefit from a depleted tourism that exhausted the Costa Brava. Maybe one could think of something else, new, and cleverly benchmarked... Eventually something will come, however for now, a loose life remains, gentle and harsh at the same time, anachronistically (or premonitory) slow, but with deep passion.

It seems that the state of crisis can’t stop figuring out new ways to sustain itself through time. It gets harder and harder to have certainties yet, one thing we can say is that, today, we have more time to spend than anything else to regain prosperity. City attractiveness is indexed on the quantity of heavy things we move from here to there, whatever energy it disperses. In the current economy, pouring concrete is a program in itself, and it remunerates each actors of its implementation. To build, to abandon, and to rebuild slightly differently is not only for the better, it is also about maintaining the acceleration of trade flow. Yet, each time it dried up, we came to realize how fast the quest for velocity brought us to fail ; yet again, each time it dries up we languish from immobility.
We came to think about slowness as both, a resistance to exhausting exhilaration, and a cure for the boredom of paralysis. Sobriety is mandatory but it is not quiet a project yet, whereas slowness brought to a model, can value solidity. Within spatial practices, it would translate into carrying, cultivating and sustaining, rather than building and delivering. That is almost Buckminster Fuller’s motto « doing more with less », but with extra-time to scrutinize « the less ». Considering Colera, Portbou and Cerbère, and the quantity of material that has been moved around and forgotten about: what a lab to understand how to turn each m2•kg/s2 of a new work into a temple. Matter is available, and if one’s eye works enough, it perceives that it already bears satisfactions in itself. From Colera, to Cerbère, one can visit a lot of reveries, with the smile of esthetic exaltations only pictures of cracked worlds produce.

TRAVELLING WORLDS

From, Colera to Cerbère, everything is made of massive objects. It’s Spanish and french built, made for defense and exchange : it’s heavy and thick, designed to accommodate millions of tons and cannonballs. There are magnificent ruins, magnificent buildings, breathtaking panoramas, romantic skies and wine to fall for... the train stations are three=times=too-big functioning platform, there is a cultural and touristic activity, people hike and motorcycle, dwell, buy and sell... there is a slight animation,within three=times=too-big spaces.

One sense of esthetic would get rid of the abandoned and dysfunctional, wishing to use this rich patrimonial and natural heritage, as a set for renewed splendors, and vivid activities. We think about potential and activation... but unless miracle, everything’s too massive to consider strategic ulterior motives.
But then, the more we explore, the more this esthetics of moral, which likes lively streets, the well restored and the well composed, feels boring. The exploration unveils singular places time has left to some cultivated neglects. Moving within the area, one’s mind peints a thousand of pictures from the intense diversity of situations beard within only 16 km. One sees glorious architectures fading, trucks moving with care on alleys about their size ; one passes before people languishing nicely and harshly, in social housing’s collective spaces ; one feels the needles that have grown through defection of south slopes, or the slight alterations the careful hand of a left-behind brought... one crosses slabs on which automaton slides and blows, one climbs on gardens where only water grows... Time has fulfill the enormous matter of this landscape, with the contrats of its action, whether things grow, wear from sea and air, are repaired with care or reused at optimum... The atmosphere seize more than the eyes : it revives our sense of feeling time passing. All, from the functioning to the ruins, are adding up to an Atlas of intangible qualities. What this world do, is to make us discover the sweet esthetics of lethargy, and few kilometers are enough to feel like adventures in some forgotten space. We have time now, to value the care dispensed by languor, and the healing capabilities to feel time flowing tranquilo : that’s the project.

ATLAS

We discovered three paths of complete enjoyment. It’s intense, not with easy access, and a little wild. It does not lead to picturesque and preserved sceneries. On the contrary, these are a succession of cultivated contrasts time has left behind for someone to care for. Those walks, they infringe upon the esthetics of moral without being a quest for romantic neglect. If one follows it, one accepts its discomfort and risks (the discomfort of a half- collapsed stair, of needles covering the clothes, of the withstanding bush, of trespassing limits that only unease draws). These are invitations to abandon oneself to the pleasure of drift which revitalises our threshold capacities. It stimulates the body with envies for spatial thrills, and it takes us to sceneries of elsewhere and rejuvenating time. As «the quest for sensorial experience from the world is the best way to know oneself »¹ we won’t change the world, but we may change ourselves.
Like all explorers and conqueridor de camins, we draw maps, we collected treasures, and we wrote diaries of discoveries and encounters in pandemic times.

1 John Brinckerhoff Jackson, The Necessity for Ruins and Other Topics, 1980