“Meet the Author” – Reading Group #01. Stavros Stavrides (2025)
Reading session and discussion with author Stavros Stavrides on his latest book, The Politics of Urban Potentiality: Spatial Patterns of Emancipatory Commoning (2024).
26.03.2025 | 17:00
The Seamstresses (Las Cosedoras). A Documentary by Tania Cearreta (Espais Crítics) (2024)
This documentary takes us inside a sewing workshop in the neighbourhood of La Mina, on the outskirts of Barcelona. The workshop emerges as an essential space in the lives of the women who have attended it for years; a space of encounter where a complex fabric of experiences and emotions is woven together. Through their stories, intertwined with the garments they make and the conversations they share, the film explores the lives of these women and their deep connection to the neighbourhood. Meanwhile, the constant clatter of the sewing machines becomes an evocative soundtrack accompanying narratives that reveal the thickness and complexity of the city’s margins.
Kisses on Robadors (Petons a Robadors). A Documentary by Fotomovimiento and Espais Crítics (2020)
Barcelona’s Chinatown (Barri Xino) has historically been a space of working-class struggles, where the identities of the Raval have asserted their right to the city. Processes of gentrification are stripping the streets of the Raval of their most rebellious and distinctive character. Yet there is another story of the neighbourhood, one that speaks of people’s lived experiences, solidarities, and affections among those who resist in an environment that marginalises them and seeks to push them out.
The video Kisses on Robadors offers a small glimpse of these voices: people born in the neighbourhood and newcomers alike; white and Black residents; women and men; young and old; sex workers and neighbours. More than a collection of individual testimonies, it is a collective story of shared struggles and common causes, and of the spaces where bonds are forged. These bonds make places such as Robadors, and the relationships between residents and sex workers, symbols of resistance and freedom.
Espacios críticos with students at the Universitat de Girona (2013)
On 5 November 2013, Abel Albet and Núria Benach presented the Espacios críticos collection at the University of Girona. Here you can watch the video of the session, introduced by Professor Josepa Bru.