What happens when women go out into the street?
An exhibition at Muhba reviews female activism from the 19th century to current housing demands
BarcelonaWhat happens when women take to the streets? This is what the exhibition Vindran les dones. 150 anys de lluites als carrers de Barcelona, which can be seen at the Barcelona History Museum (Muhba) in Plaça del Rei until September 13, attempts to answer. The exhibition recovers the invisible thread that connects 19th-century anarchists with 21st-century young women who claim the right to decent housing, all through the eyes of about eighty female writers, artists, and activists who have lived in the Catalan capital.
The origin of the project dates back to Barcelona's participation in the Guadalajara International Book Fair. As Ingrid Guardiola, who curated the exhibition with Mita Casacuberta and Anna Maria Iglesia, recalls, the fair was the trigger to "recover women writers in general." "From here, we wanted to analyze how the public space of Barcelona and of large capitals is expropriated from collective life when it comes into the hands of vulture funds," says Guardiola, who warns of the tragedy of losing historic venues or the impossibility of affording a place to live, and of how women have always taken to the streets when it comes to defending collective rights. According to Guardiola, the richness and idiosyncrasy of each neighborhood are at risk of disappearing. “In the last fifteen years, many voices have warned that the city is polarizing between shacks or basement flats and luxury apartments. Historically, women writers have wonderfully captured the personality of the neighborhoods, which, unfortunately, is being lost,” she adds.
The exhibition is divided into four historical periods that contrast two views of the metropolis. On the one hand, there is the "ideal Barcelona" built by the bourgeoisie for the most conservative sectors. This idealized image was created through poetry and the founding of the Jocs Florals in 1859, under the slogan "Homeland, faith, love," with women like Dolors Monserdà, Carme Karr, or Francesca Bonnemaison, founder of the first library for women in Europe. On the other hand, other voices arose that described the conflicts, abuses, and problems of the popular classes. It is a more assertive and revolutionary Barcelona, with writers, educators, and activists who organized themselves into fraternities and lodges to discuss literature, politics, or spiritualism, and to defend working women. Names like Clotilde Cerdà, promoter of the Academy for the Enlightenment of Women, or Ángeles López de Ayala, Amalia Domingo, and Teresa Claramunt, moral".
The rent and class struggle in the 21st centuryunveiling".
Rent and Class Struggle in the 21st Century
Despite covering a century and a half of history, the exhibition shows that certain structural problems remain alive. The 1929 Universal Exhibition already led Rosa Maria Arquimbau to propose reforms to the Barcelona City Council to protect vulnerable sectors and single women. In the 21st century, Anna Pacheco gives voice to exploited room attendants in tourist areas, while Stefanie Kremser explains how she was expelled from the Born and was forced to leave the city for a time with her partner, the also writer Toni Puntí. Najat El Hachmi reflects on women arriving in Barcelona from Morocco and their daughters, and Llucia Ramis shares the anxiety about rising rental prices. Irene Pujadas turns her protagonist's body into a metropolitan city, Marina Garcés recalls the Barcelona of social activism in the late nineties, and Blanca Llum Vidal connects with the popular memory of October 1st and the sovereignty of peoples.
Throughout the exhibition, the authors question what it means to have a dignified life and what means to achieve it. As Guardiola recalls, the historical struggles led by women have "a unique nature very tied to daily survival and community support". They mobilized the entire city during the bread riot in 1789 because they were responsible for feeding the family; they took to the streets around 1900 to demand freedom of conscience and defend that their children should not go to war; and they organized to demand a secular school.
For the curator, the home should not be understood as a passive refuge but as an authentic political center, the place where children grow up and become citizens, directly connecting the personal with the collective sphere. One of the reflections that Guardiola reaches after curating the exhibition and collecting dozens of testimonies is a generational shift: younger authors have overcome the gender issue and focus on social class, speaking of classism and access to basic necessities, while older authors focus on gender. "However, they all share that feminism essentially seeks rights and equal opportunities for everyone," says Guardiola.
