"Short man gray sweatpants dark short jacket dissimulating, has done strange things is in Pompeu Fabra". This is the faithful reproduction (although translated from Catalan) of a message sent on January 5, 2020 to the WhatsApp group Alerta Mira-sol, a surveillance chat created by residents of this urbanization in Sant Cugat del Vallès to share information about robberies and "suspicious" activities in the area.
Photographer Blanca Mut used this chat as the center of her final degree research project at IDEP-Escuela Superior de Imagen y Diseño de Barcelona, which includes much other documentation (photographs, newspaper clippings, interviews, etc.), all designed to illustrate the permanent state of alarm in the neighborhood. A sample of this work is part of the exhibition Suburbia at the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona, which I have referred to in previous articles.
Security is undoubtedly one of the main concerns for people who live or own property in any of these low-density areas. The different waves of news (not without exaggeration or even directly based on fake news) that have occurred around the action of organized gangs, often formed by people from countries with ongoing or recent wars, which always adds an extra layer of concern, has notably contributed to reinforcing all fears. The same applies to the more recent permanent bombardment of information (again, not supported by data evidence) led by morning television programs about illegal occupations.
It is precisely the relative isolation of homes, especially when they are single-family homes, that generates a greater sense of helplessness against any intrusion into privacy. This is also a challenge for police forces, who logically find themselves in a much less controllable environment than in the compact city and who often have to face reproaches and complaints from residents of urbanizations for lack of effectiveness. The step towards a variety of forms of self-defense, as in the case of Mirasol, but which can become more extreme (such as "armed" patrols) is thus served as soon as someone with a certain leadership capacity appears among the neighborhood.
The exhibition contains all kinds of documentary and artistic material about the dark side of the suburbs, mainly in the section called The Residential Nightmare. But it is not only the fear of being victims of crime that acts upon people residing in these spaces: from the nuclear threat, which led to the proliferation of shelters and bunkers integrated into homes during the height of the Cold War ---and seems to be doing so again---, to the alleged drop in property values due to the access of lower-income or racialized people, passing through the helplessness in the face of natural disasters such as wildfires.
The step towards a variety of forms of self-defense, as in the case of Mirasol, but which can become more extreme (such as "armed" patrols) is thus served just by someone with a certain leadership capacity appearing among the neighborhoodThe exhibition does not pay excessive attention to the phenomenon of gated communities, or literally closed urbanizations with walls and private security service. An extreme case of segregation that, despite having a presence in the United States, the focus of the exhibition, acquires its maximum expression in countries like Argentina, where under the name of countries have experienced a boom, especially after the pandemic, to the point that currently there are more than 350 around Buenos Aires housing more than 50,000 exclusive inhabitants. In reality, one should speak of self-segregation or, even, "inverse quarantine". This concept, coined by sociologist Andrew Szasz in the book Shopping Our Way to Safety, wants to explain the tendency of those who have the means to do so to isolate themselves from the "sick world" that surrounds them. All this boom of countries and their implications Claudia Piñeiro explains it very well, the author of The Widows of Thursdays, novel brought to the cinema in the year 2009.
Precisely, as Suburbia reflects, the cultural production around this concern, which we could describe as structural for the residents of the urbanizations, is immense. Literature, and in particular crime novels, of course, find fertile ground for the construction of a whole new imaginary in which the gardener or the nanny (almost always of migrant origin) replace the butler as the main suspect in crimes that are actually usually perpetrated, or at least induced, by the wealthy residents they serve.
For its part, the Filmin platform has enabled a channel linked to the exhibition with a selection of feature films set in this residential model, to which we could also add an endless number of television series from the 50s until now, with titles like Desperate Housewives (Desperate Housewives) as one of the best cases of condensation of all the elements reviewed throughout the exhibition.
It is, however, the photographic and pictorial display that gives the exhibition its darker air. The best way to enjoy it: reserve a couple of hours to visit Subturbia before September 8.
Add The New Barcelona Post as your preferred Google source for free
Stay informed with the latest news.