City, Conflict and Emancipation

Cities are spaces of a multiplicity of lives, stories, and worlds. The urban fabric is often the setting of forms of violence and oppression which are exercised within specific coordinates and on certain bodies, sometimes more subtly and symbolically and, on other occasions, more pitilessly and brutally. But cities are also places offering the possibility of emancipation, where individuals can mark out new paths and weave new alliances, where nothing is written, and individual and collective destinies can change direction every day. Inhabiting public space then becomes an act of dissidence, in calling for and affirming one’s own survival.

The writers Marta Sanz and Cristina Morales have described in their works this structural violence incarnated by cities and have pondered the possibilities of emancipation beyond the limits imposed by the norm. The writer and activist Brigitte Vasallo, who has also reflected on these questions, will moderate the discussion. The session will conclude with the staging of the monologue Parlen d’una revolució (They Talk about a Revolution), an original piece by the dramaturg Denise Duncan about the experience of being a black woman in Catalonia, which will be performed by the singer and actor Yolanda Sey.