Roofless Cages (Gàbies a cel obert). The body as a tool for measuring violence, insecurity and freedom in public spaces

Roofless Cages is a nine-month personal experimentation to explore how the inherent design of public spaces conditions the freedom of our bodies based on the perception of security in day-to-day urban scenarios. The research involved recording the different ways of exposing the body, sexual assaults experienced on the streets of Poble Sec, Barcelona such as intimidating glances, offensive comments dressed as “compliments” to even physical contact. The more the body was exposed, the more violence was experienced.

The perception of security, or rather the lack of it, potentially shapes our experiences in public spaces. This fear of sexual violence, which attacks the most intimate part of our bodies, largely determines how we use such spaces and adapt or limit our daily lives around it.

part 1_experimentation

1

2

3

Illustrated scenes

1

2

3

part 2_research

Heights analysis of the Laribal Gardens, Barcelona. Paper model 1:1000

Space design strategies for protection, security and power and phisical similarities with the studied context: Poble Sec and Montjuïc, Barcelona. 

part 3_intervention

Suspended volumes, transparencies and tensions: a spatial intervention generates situations of visibility, invisibility, power and vulnerability. It is based on an analysis of the exposure of the body, the spaces of power and security strategies which are reproduced in a gesture that stages the oppression of the body. It aims to reflect the conceptual and physical limitations from the patriarchal vision that shapes our reality and right to the city.

1:30 models - Fragments of the intervention / Jaula-nube, Chema Madoz, 2004 / Louise Bourgeois, Cell XXV The View of the World of the Jealous Wife, 2001 

Download the project book _ Available in Catalan

Ei!Awards exhibition, 11th edition 2022, Elisava, Barcelona, October-November 2022