Something is happening inside the abandoned factories in the Poblenou, the old industrial district of Barcelona. Groups of artists gathered from the five continents have turned the buildings into a great culture workshop. It is a noble answer to the faulty “22@ Barcelona” city plan, developed in 2000, and meant to turn this suburb into a technological district. Defunct industrial districts are now being revitalised and giving back new energy: sculpture and painting workshops, theatre, music, and, as in this little story, a contemporary circus.
Capitalism, with its economical and social model, seems here to have been defeated by the bravery of gross roots social groups, flourishing like flowers in a wasteland.
What the Circo Paniko has achieved in Barcelona is a significant short term reclamation of an abandoned urban space.