Peoplelovespaces

30/06/2021

Recently I began to discover Warsaw, its neighborhoods and people. This is very inspiring. Here is my report about the old market and the local community center in Praga district, made by FUNDACJA ZMIANA.

Maria Dąbrowska-Majewska and her daughter Wiktoria Majewska are closely connected with Praga, the district of Warsaw. Here, they set up a local community center in an old market.

06/02/2021

Like other Polish cities today, Krakow is an example of how the split of Polish society into two opposing camps (associated with the recent introduction of near-total abortion ban) is embodied in the visual space of the city. Banners with the "lightning" logo, which has become a symbol of the massive protest against this law, can be seen not only on the windows and facades of residential buildings, but also on local businesses, such as, for example, hairdressers. In response to the wave of intolerance towards LGBT people, the city mayor's office placed posters "Krakow, free of Hate". At the same time, campaign cars with images of "victims of the mafia of abortions" (with activists of a public organization that had previously collected signatures for the introduction of the controversial ban) are running around the city, from which slogans against abortion are heard over the megaphone.

More on this theme: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-55838210

28/10/2020

For several years now, I have seen Pablo Vera de Cabo protect La Corrala (en la calle Fray Diego de Cadiz) - perhaps the last Corral de Vecinos (traditional Sevillian house built in the19th and early 20th centuries for poor and working class residents) in which the authentic atmosphere of Sevillian corrales de vecinos has been preserved, and in which not only people live, but also meet and make concerts, exhibitions, brunches. This house is one of the living "hearts" of Macarena quarter, with a very warm atmosphere. Usually, La Corrala hosts students who come to Seville from different countries to learn flamenco music and dance. But now, due to the Coronavirus pandemic, many students have been unable to travel to Seville. If you or your friends are looking for simple, inexpensive and authentic housing in Macarena for several months (or even a month), write to Pablo Vera de Cabo! Please share if you can. And here you can read our article about La Corrala: http://peoplelovespaces.net/articles/13

In Macarena - one of the most colorful quarters of the town of Seville - there is a house that works as a time machine. Once in it, you will travel to the beginning of the 20th century accompanied by an interesting community of contemporaries.

04/02/2020

Like the fictional state of Zubrowka in «The Grand Budapest Hotel» movie, Görlitz has been ruled by many kingdoms and empires. After World War II, the world powers annexed the eastern part of Germany to Communist Poland, and the border went right along the river, which divides the city into two parts. Since that time Görlitz and the Polish city of Zgorzelec live as if together and at the same time apart. Read our report from Görlitz to feel the inner life of this place.

Divided by the river, the German city of Görlitz and the Polish city of Zgorzelec live as if together and at the same time apart. We talked with the youth Görlitz to feel the inner life of this place.

26/11/2019

In the summer of 2019, PeopleLoveSpaces invited Polish artists Agata Gzhych and Bartosz Czapla to take part in a grassroots artist residency in the Russian village of Kurba. With the help of the foundation AIR Wro, we were able to connect people and local projects in Russia and Poland. Read more...

Maria Nikitina decided to make an artist residency in Kurba in order to breathe life into the native village of her family. Kurba has a very valuable architectural and historical heritage but is now going through very difficult times.

31/10/2019

San Bernardo is one of the neighborhoods of Seville, which over the past decades has experienced rapid gentrification and from workers' district has turned into an expensive dormitory area in the center of this Andalusian city. The collective memory of generations of its inhabitants and the heritage of San Bernardo still await their recognition. A year and a half ago, an urban art artist from Poland, Piotr Pałkowski (his artistic name is Fruit of the lump) visited the city of Seville at our invitation and, inspired by the story of San Bernardo, painted a mural work inside the hangar of locomotives left from the old railway station of Cadiz. This work is based on the historical photo of the wagons flooded during the big flood Seville experienced in 1961. It is curious that later the hangar was completely walled up after the installation work of the new parking around this building, so now there is no way to access the building to see Piotr's work.

Our idea was to continue with this type of works based on the history of the neighborhood, putting them in several places, for example, installing them in the windows of the "Paterri" old ruined school, in the station's former cisterns and in other buildings of the neighborhood that are empty or without function (by the way, the locomotive hangar would be an ideal place for artistic performances and art/crafts workshops, since this land belongs, as we learned, to Consejería de Cultura - Junta de Andalucía). We need to request permission from the local authorities for such action, and we are looking for local collaborators to help us manage it with the authorities and continue with the project. We talk about this project in a recent interview for Canal Sur Radio last Saturday, 26.10 (you can hear it from the 40th minute of the "Andalucía near you" program, in Spanish). http://www.canalsur.es/radio/programas/andalucia-cerca-de-ti/detalle/418650.html?video=1494985&fbclid=IwAR1lAsF51qb4ELgdg0spB2fWuvf5o7jHTgAsseUoWrGXd7gMYMFz8dee8qQ

15/10/2019

We are attending now the Informed Cities Conference in Warsaw. Who (re)builds the heritage? How to support local initiatives that are not financed by the government? What can we do with the heritage without community? How to introduce heritage to our normal life? These are the problems that are solved (or not) differently in every place, city and country. However, the exchange of views is very inspiring and expands our vision and possibilities. Open heritage = open people.

20/09/2019

Replacement of traditional paving in city parks and squares (sand or gravel) with stone tiles has become a trend in the renovation of public outdoor spaces in recent years. As a result, squares and parks in different cities of Europe look very similar :) is it really necessary? And what economic factors (or other interests) are causing this? Here is an example from the renovation of Alameda central boulevard of Malaga ... And I wonder if the lawn will take root on such narrow pieces of ground, surrounded by stone? ..

22/07/2019

Thanks to the initiative of the local resident Мария Никитина (Maria Nikitina), the old village of Kurba in the Yaroslavl region in Russia has become for a week an art residency Kurba Art Expedition for young artists, musicians, architects and filmmakers. Maria has a special feeling in relation to this place. Her family shared the fate of many peasants who lost their farms and houses during the time of dispossession and "collectivization" in the Soviet period.

The unique 18th-century church has been preserved in Kurba, but it needs care and restoration. One of the main goals of the residency is to draw attention to this heritage.

On the initiative of PeopleLoveSpaces and with the support of Wroclaw foundation AIR Wro, Polish photographer Agata Grzych and video artist Bartosz Czapla came to Kurba. At Agata's workshop, the participants of the residency created cardboard pinhole cameras (also known as Cameras Obscuras - the oldest type of photo camera) and took photographs of the place.

We hope that artists from other countries will come to Kurba next summer. Kurba Art Expedition is open to cooperation with all creative people! One of the guests of the art residency has been the Moscow based folk music group Комонь (Komon) - a real discovery! - which reconstructs and sings ancient folk songs from different regions of Russia.

26/06/2019

It’s surprising that even in the European Union, where borders have been abolished, there are practically no interconnections and movements of people between the border regions of neighbouring countries. We have in mind not so much economic as cultural and human ties.

The Sudetes is a region between the Czech Republic, Germany and Poland, where the border has always passed. Hi**er attacked Czechoslovakia in 1939 in connection with the alleged “oppression” of the Sudeten Germans who lived on the territory of the Czech part of Sudetes. At the end of World War 2, in retaliation, several millions of Germans were expelled from the Polish and Czech Sudetenland. Since then, these places are not very famous and visited, there are many reminiscent of the past and the fact that there is still a lot to learn and understand from history.

We just went hiking from the Czech Republic to Poland on these beautiful mountains and wonderful small towns full of romance, antiquity and depression. Here you can find a huge number of heritage sites, many of which are in terrible condition. It would be great if there were more communication and cooperation, in particular, for the restoration and study of history and cultural monuments... We are looking for ways to make these connections ...

19/06/2019

For the second time, we attend one of the small and cute Czech summer festivals - Festival HABROVKA in the fourth district of Prague. It was very touching the concert of the Czech choir Subito in a small wooden church, which performed medieval songs and Romanian-Bulgarian folk and even gospel. And we enjoyed the Czech singer and cellist Dorota Barová, who sings songs in Polish (she has Polish roots - everything is intertwined in Europe). It's nice that the festival has a very eclectic format and warm, family atmosphere and is done for the small quarter of the city, without any pathos. Thanks, Habrovka!