Media Stunts Against Administrative Neglect

1. Individual Media Stunt

What can a couple of architects do when three flats in their building have been squatted for two years by a gang of thieves and drug dealers whose business activity continues unabated even during a pandemic? What can be done about administrative neglect that effectively provides impunity to delinquent activity, and that moreover aggravates the current public health emergency? Doesn’t Lefebvre’s “right to the city” also entail a modicum of public security?

In such a situation, it becomes necessary to resort to the fourth estate: news media. But how, when what’s occurring is not even “news” because it has become such a common problem? With some architectural imagination it’s possible to generate a news story by way of a media stunt. We decided to imitate the hygiene measures of supermarkets and pharmacies by marking the pavement in front of our building’s entrance with concentric social distancing arcs, next to which disposable gloves and disinfectant were kindly offered to “clients”.

Links: La Vanguardia, El País, El Periódico, Nació Digital, Ara.cat, Metropoli Abierta, Tot Barcelona, Terc3ra Información, L’informatiu TVE Catalunya, betevé, TV3 Planta Baixa (minut 35), Catalunya Informació.

2. Collective Media Stunt with neighbors Salvador Street, Barcelona

The media impact provoked Barcelona’s Guardia Urbana municipal police to appear and the drug dealers in our building to disappear. One of the three squatted flats was emptied and the other two handed over their squatted flats to family members not involved in narcotics. But the best result of this media stunt was the sudden increase in cohesion among residents of our street. A neighbourhood WhatsApp group grew in size and activity, and a decision was taken to organize another stunt–this time a collective action along the entire street– to call attention to the continuing presence of drug dens in several other buildings. We would celebrate the inauguration of a fictitious “narcotics supermarket” named “Super Salva” with posters, flags, banners and decorative lights. However the Catalan police force Mossos d’Esquadra threatened to fine us for violating the lock-down if we set foot on the street (the drug dealers on the street, meanwhile, were not being fined!), provoking us to suspend banners over our street without setting foot on it.