Happy Urban Art On A Sad Prison Wall

La Modelo Mural Art, Juntes, Barcelona, 2021

Art on a prison wall???

Yes, indeed.

[See my two previous blog posts about this place: November 24, 2017 (a tour inside), and on December 13, 2018 (the first urban art panels).]

La Modelo

To review…

La Modelo was an active men’s prison for well over 100 years (1904-2017), it covered two entire city blocks (surrounded by high walls, barbed wire, and watchtowers), and was capable of housing some 600 prisoners. There were 24 executions carried out within its walls–by garrote vil, of all methods–so it was certainly not a happy place. The last to be executed was 25-year-old Salvador Puig i Antich, a sad tale of what was really more political vengeance by Franco rather than any kind of real justice.

In Catalan, the official name was “el Centre Penitenciari d’Homes de Barcelona“, but popularly known as simply “La Model“, “La Modelo” being the Castellano/Spanish translation.

As you have likely deduced, when first built, the idea was to construct a “model prison” that would serve as an example of how to efficiently handle a large number of inmates–a model based on the “panopticon” concept of control.

Further explanation from Ms. Wiki hits the key points:

“The panopticon (all-seeing) is a type of institutional building and a system of control designed by the English philosopher and social theorist Jeremy Bentham in the 18th century. The concept of the design is to allow all prisoners of an institution to be observed by a single security guard, without the inmates being able to tell whether they are being watched.

Although it is physically impossible for the single guard to observe all the inmates’ cells at once, the fact that the inmates cannot know when they are being watched means that they are motivated to act as though they are being watched at all times. Thus, the inmates are effectively compelled to regulate their own behaviour. The architecture consists of a rotunda with an inspection house at its centre. From the centre, the manager or staff of the institution are able to watch the inmates. Bentham conceived the basic plan as being equally applicable to hospitals, schools, sanatoriums, and asylums, but he devoted most of his efforts to developing a design for a panopticon prison. It is his prison that is now most widely meant by the term “panopticon.”

To illustrate, in the photo below (credit: Wiki Commons), you can plainly see the central, circular “opticon” (red roof) from which the guards could easily look down the several radiating dorms or hallways. From this central point, a single guard could theoretically monitor activity in the entire prison.

Again, surely not a happy kind o’ place.

Food for thought

Do you think the days of this kind of panopticon-style spying is over? Think again, Buckwheat, as you carry around that cell phone with you wherever you go. Do you really know who might be watching or tracking you via your device?

Today

So, it is with much joy that today we see the walls of this now-empty prison being covered by urban art.

These three panels–Juntes (Together), Diverses (Diverse), and Rebels (Rebellious)–are the latest additions and represent a powerful feminist/anti-racist/pro-diversity statement–as that sentiment continues to crash through countries all around the world (#MeToo and Black Lives Matter being the two most obvious examples in the USA).

And, they really pop with “alegría” and color!