Road – Ramon Alabau and Francesc Morera
“Camí” (Road) is not exactly an exhibition, but rather a passage-exhibition which expands along the 56 km that retrace the road of retreat from Ripoll to Prats de Mollo. It includes the six population centres of Ripoll, Sant Joan de les Abadesses, Sant Pau, Camprodon, Mollo and Prats de Mollo.
“Camí” aims to spur our collective memory; it aims to serve as an excuse to surface memory by using the tools we have at our disposal – in our case, Art.
Must we remember? Must we go back over and over again the 1936-1939 events? It is commonly held that we must remember our past so that we do not repeat it, an argument we tend to consider as fairly satisfactory. However, our everyday life shows us that human beings do not learn from the past, so there must be something else. During one of the exhibitions, I heard these words which helped me realize that there is much more to it: “We should be able to build a society which is based on human values instead of on money”. It seems obvious enough; it actually sounds terribly logical.
What we need to remember and incorporate today are the values of those generations: solidarity, modernity (insofar as it aims for an improvement of living conditions and human rights), freedom (as the right to make decisions beyond market or economic relationships), etc., concepts which are nowadays considered as harmful, outdated or not practical – if not as directly stupid – by the prevailing neoliberal policies. However, reading them aloud now I see that they do not differ so much from what many young groups – known as anti-system, anti-globalization or squatters – are presently advocating for.
It looks as if History has wanted to connect two generations together by leaving out another two. So perhaps it would be wise to make evident that our great-grandparents fought for things which are very similar to the ones that these young groups are fighting for today, and that history’s mistake lies in the generations in the middle… and not the other way round.
