TOURO
CHANGING THE VILLAGE THROUGH PROTAGONIST PARTICIPATION
Working with Galician Literature, Ramón Cabanillas
In a place lacking strong identity references (where the main element of collective memory was a disused nightclub), the project begins with a latent infrastructure: the town’s street map, whose names pay tribute to authors of Galician literature. Based on this cultural cartography, A Vila do Mañá turns words into infrastructure and literature into a tool for urban activation.
The figures of children and teenagers themselves (their silhouettes, bodies, and gestures) become the visual protagonists of the urban space. The aim is not to represent them, but to allow them to inscribe themselves into the landscape with their scale, their language, and their living presence. Their image occupies façades, walls, and partitions, intervening in the rural environment with their collective identity and symbolic power.
– ¿Tí en qué pensas, alma miña?
¿Alma tola, ti onde vas?
– ¡Meu corpiño, vou lonxe!
¡Onde sempre! ¡Vou alá!
Vou ver si verdexa o liño,
si ten gomos o parral,
si afollaron as pereiras,
si a fror dos laranxos cai.
Vou ver como creba o río
nas areas seus cristás,
si hai botóns roxos no trebo
e pendóns no milleiral
e si pintan as cereixas
e si callan as mazáns.
Vou ver si atopo receda
nos mallóns do salgueiral
e a cachear as silveiras,
anque me firan as mans,
buscando negras amorias
e niños de paspallás.
Quero ouír o barulleiro
ruxe-ruxe do pinal,
mollar os pés nos regueiros,
sentarme á veira do lar,
a estumballarme na erba
miuda do castañal
e andar a rolos entre ela
bicando o nativo chan.
Quero ouír cantar o cuco,
sentir o oubeo dos cans
e escoitar na lonxanía
aturuxos e alalás,
ó erguerse a lúa de prata
sobre a esmeralda do mar.
Quero rubir ós penedos,
canta que te cantarás,
cando o sol morno da tarde
doura os verdores do val,
e baixar, ó vir a noite,
camiño do meu fogar,
cando tocan as oracións
melancólicas campás…
¡Vou a ver os meus amores
que por min chamando están!
¡Vou a darlle un bico á lousa
onde dorme miña nai!
¡Vaite, almiña tola, vaite!
¡Ai, quén poidera voar!
Ramón Cabanillas
COLOUR YOUR VILLAGE
The village or city in which we are working, transformed into a game board, a laboratory of experimentation where children and teenagers can act from a new point of view.