Rates de bibilioteca [Bookworms]
The project originated from a work that artist Rosa Brugat presented at the Westminster Reference Library in London (Firmin, The Wise Rat, 2014). During a conversation with the library’s artistic director, the discussion turned to the vital importance of digitization and the risk of losing invaluable books and documents if it is not carried out.
From that moment on, Brugat conceived an artistic research and creation project to promote digitization, inviting other artists to collaborate.
Each participating artist interpreted one or more documents whose historical or cultural significance makes digitization essential to ensure their preservation. A selection of books was sponsored to make their digitization possible.
Library Rats has been developed and presented across two different locations:
Galleria Pescheria. Cesena, Italy, 2018
Original idea: Rosa Brugat
Curator: Anton Roca
Participating artists: Joana Baygual, Rosa Brugat, Rosó Cusó, Marisa González, Myriam Lambert, Matilde Obradors, Anton Roca, Mercè Rodríguez, Aureli Ruiz.
The project received official recognition from MIBACT (Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities) and the Municipality of Cesena on the occasion of the European Year of Cultural Heritage.
My contribution to the exhibition:
Sant Melic [Saint Navel]
All too often, national borders are imposed without regard for the ethnic diversity coexisting within the same territory. This forces the coexistence of individuals with distinctly different cultures, religions, and languages.
To embody this reality, I used the symbol of a world globe printed onto a punching bag. Held within it are the collected sufferings, laments, screams, prayers, and hymns of the men and women living through war and conflict.
This work was conceived in a time of profound crisis, where the individual feels an imperative need to vent and release tension. In this case, we invite them to do so by striking the world—releasing accumulated rage and hitting back at our enemy. Hearing its cries, perhaps we feel a stir of compassion; or perhaps we do not.
(Historical and Geographical Atlas of the Holy Land.
Biblioteca de Catalunya, Barcelona – territorial conflicts)
Press:
- "Inaugurata la mostra "Topi da biblioteca" [...]" – Corriere Cesenate
- Topi da Biblioteca – European Year of Cultural Heritage, MiBAC
- Topi da Biblioteca – Comune di Cesena
- L'arte dei "Topi da biblioteca" che salva i libri – CesenaToday
- Ratitas de Biblioteca – M-Arte y Cultura Visual
- L'art de salvar els llibres – El Punt Avui
Public Library Arús, Barcelona (2019–2020)
Original idea and curation: Rosa Brugat
Participating artists: Joana Baygual, Rosa Brugat, Rosó Cusó, Myriam Lambert, Francesca Llopis, Matilde Obradors, Anton Roca, Marisa Gonzalez, Aureli Ruiz.
My contribution to the exhibition:
Colador d'idees – Desinfecció cultural [Idea Strainer – Cultural Disinfection]
Installation
A letter preserved in the Barcelona Municipal Archives, with a copy held at the Biblioteca Arús, dates back to June 1940 and originates from the Barcelona Police Headquarters. Penned by the Chief of Police, it was addressed to the city’s then-mayor, Miquel Mateu i Pla.
The letter exhibited in this project reveals that an informant disclosed that the library housed an extensive collection of Masonic works. Anecdotally, it is said that Franco wished to join Freemasonry and was rejected—a humiliation that likely fueled his obsessive, ruthless crusade against it. In the upper right-hand corner of the document, scribbled in pencil, one can read: "no contestar" [do not reply]. We can therefore infer that this letter never received an official response.
Through this installation, Brugat seeks to recall the seizures and destruction of books and documents during the Franco dictatorship: any content deemed unpatriotic, heretical to Catholic morality, or promoting foreign influences such as Marxism, Freemasonry, atheism, Judaism, as well as works labeled "pornographic" or immoral. Books by anti-Nazi, liberal, and Marxist thinkers (Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky) were burned alongside those accused of socialist or communist leanings. Works by authors sympathetic to the Second Spanish Republic were systematically eradicated (Azaña, Machado, Lorca, Juan Ramón Jiménez, Alberti, Miguel Hernández), as well as Basque and regional nationalists (Sabino Arana) and universal literary figures including Lamartine, Freud, Voltaire, La Fontaine, Rousseau, Immanuel Kant, Stendhal, Sade, Goethe, Balzac, Ibsen, and Azorín.
Specific masterworks were banned outright, including Prosper Mérimée's Carmen, the majority of works by Gabriel Miró, Emilia Pardo Bazán, and Benito Pérez Galdós, Fernando de Rojas's La Celestina, Charles Darwin, Thomas Mann, the Libro de Buen Amor by the Archpriest of Hita, and texts by early feminist authors. A vast number of other manuscripts were banned prior to publication and kept from public view for decades—frequently resurfacing only in heavily censored editions, as was the case with Elena Fortún’s Celia series.
Press:
L’art actual, els llibres i les rates de biblioteca [Contemporary Art, Books, and Library Rats]- El temps de les arts