La Escocesa 2006-2021

Today I walked past La Escocesa and, seeing the banners hanging on the façade, I remembered 2006, when we began the fight to save neighbours, artisans, artists and the building. It all started with an assembly of artists and neighbours in the church square, on Sunday 16 February. Two days later we hung the banner.

Fifteen years have passed and we are still in the same place. The faces and the stories change, but it is still the same neglect, and with more poverty than before. That said, the artists keep working in the factory, and that is a great achievement.

In the 2006 photo: Albert Coma Bau on the ladder, Frank Hubner on the balcony, and me, in a blue smock, in an apparently disconsolate pose.

Between the first photo (18-2-2006) and the current one (19-2-2021), exactly fifteen years have passed; it looks deliberate, but it isn’t — it was a surprising coincidence synchronicity.