Cultural practices and public spaces as places of social and political interaction. An analysis of activism and festive criticism in Barcelona and València

Abstract

The development of big cities has become a global phenomenon, reducing the possibilities
of generating coexistence in the social space. The current search to connect the micro-political scale
of these spaces with their inhabitants reconfigures the sense of belonging to the city. This aspiration
often leads to active forms of social disobedience in the public space or, in contrast, to actions that
perpetuate the reproduction of conservative cultural practices. From this perspective, the present work
sets out to analyze some cultural practices that place participation in the public space as the protagonist.
On the one hand, artivist actions in Barcelona, whereby they seek to recognize the social problem by
consolidating the public space as a place of resistance. On the other hand, the politicization of festive
culture in Valencia will be analysed. Although it has tended to promote conservative festive-social
visions in the public space, there are also alternative and critical views, such as experimental Fallas or
alternatives Fallas. For the analysis, secondary sources will be used, mainly visual documents. For this,
there is an archive of images made in situ, both from the València Fallas and from artivism in Barcelona.