Year
2019-2020
 
Date
Prototype test
19 October [Fundación Luis Seoane]
22 February [Helena Gutterage Place]
 
Location
Luis Seoane Foundation, A Coruña
Helena Gutterage Place, Vancouver
 
Organize
Viva Vancouver [web]
 
Participates
Sistema Lupo
 
Team
Fermín G. Blanco
Julia Morlacci
Alba Pérez Fernández
Ignacio Bescansa Bastarreche
Luis Miguel Fernández López
Víctor GG Echave
Leticia Zapara Medina
Hilda González Cebrián
 
Collaboration
Luis Seoane Foundation
Nenoarquitectura
Viva Vancouver
 
[+info]

Memory & Photos

Last Saturday, October 19, our rain game prototype was put to the test, a winning proposal of the Canadian Life Between Umbrellas contest, with the system testers as participants of the Nenoarchitecture course at the Luis Seoane Foundation of Coruña
 
Rainy days turn into gray days. The presence of clouds and water conditions the behavior of people and societies, and this, in cities such as Vancouver, with 165 days of rain per year, spread between October and March and 1,150mm rainfall records, becomes really important.
 
In Spain we could compare it with places like La Sierra de Grazalema, the rainiest place in the entire peninsula, a microclimate that generates more than 2,000mm of annual rainfall at this point. Closer to us we have the city of Santiago de Compostela with almost 140 days of rain per year on average with an average rainfall of 1,787mm and A Coruña around 130 days and 1,106mm of rainfall.
 
This type of climate reproduces the same pattern universally: people tend to individualism and the comfort of their homes, leaving aside the social component.
Life in the city is challenged by the weather, so the use of public spaces decreases, since most are poorly equipped to promote public life and other activities in the rain. The umbrella becomes a shield against the elements, and public life acquires an accelerated pace as people rush to flee the rain.
 
The contest
 
The contest was raised in three aspects, Stream 1: The Place, which was presented by participants of Nenoarchitecture and two of them won the first prize of the public in the category of young people, Stream 2: The Intervention and Stream 3 The Celebration, which is the one that corresponded in this case.
 
“Life Between Umbrellas: The Celebration. An emerging, rain-friendly activation, a public space that will help build a more positive culture towards rainfall, fostering social connections in the rainy months. ”
 
In that sense, the proposal proposes to use rainwater as a playing field. It will be through the implementation of the work of the artist Tatiana Medal, who also accompanied us and advised on the testing of the prototype, based on her research with color and watercolor, its light effects, introducing color in the polycarbonate cells.
 
Our proposal
 
The proposal, Human Printer-Art Easel, aims to activate public space through gaming devices, filling public spaces with color. Through these artistic easels, the objective is to promote rain-friendly culture and collaborative work.
 
The operation and its assembly is very simple: during a rainy day, these folding easels made with red cedar wood, cellular polycarbonate plates and wheels, are taken to the street. In the upper part there is an impermeable tank where solid or liquid pigments of color and natural origin are introduced. This tank collects rainwater, which is dyed by pigments and passes to the polycarbonate cells. The panel in its lower part allows to open and administer the watercolor according to the technique that will be used: lines resulting from the drag of the easel, recovery of the material in buckets for later use with brooms, brushes or directly with the body / hands .. Creating any type of image on the floor, large-scale game boards, messages, etc. Our cartridge is already created, so we only needed people to interact and paint on the public space, the participants of Nenoarchitecture, mothers, fathers and other relatives, they did so and turned a small piece of the city into an artistic canvas. A work that clearly shows the spirit of community, demonstrating that different generations can collaborate together to color and fill the city with life. Its triangular shape, the fact that it can be folded, its wheels and the use (rechargeable) of clean natural pigments will allow easy transport and storage of the easels, which favors that this activity is easily managed and reproduced in different spaces, days , years. … Adults and children, men and women, parents and children, grandparents and grandchildren … all together can fill any city with color in the rain.