Memoria 2002 - Fundación César Manrique

E N G L I S H V E R S I O N
Round table -
Workshop.
Public art for citizen
participation
to conversion of the marginal or illegal city to a citizens’ city;
to metropolitan or pluri-municipal government; to political
innovation; and to the right to access and use information and
communications technology.
The second part of the lecture was devoted to practical
examples in many different cities, illustrated with photographs.
Borja consistently defended a different image of citizenship
than generally portrayed and which he summarised in the
following provocative phrase: “the poor are also entitled to
beauty”, in a reference to emigration, a phenomenon so
relevant to the reality of Lanzarote today.
On 18 and 20 April Antonio Remesar – tenured professor of
the Department of Sculpture with the University of
Barcelona’s Faculty of Fine Arts – led the round tableworkshop
titled Public art for citizen participation, convened
to explore the concepts “artist/art in social facilitation” and
address different methodologies for encouraging citizen
participation processes.
Antonio Remesar graduated from the University of Barcelona,
liberal arts, in 1975 and took his PhD in that same institution
in fine arts in 1986. He has also been professor with the
“Environmental Intervention” master programme since 1992
and visiting professor at the universities of Buenos Aires and
Cordoba (Argentina), UIAH (Helsinki), Manchester
Metropolitan University, University of the Basque Country,
Polytechnic University of Valencia, Autonomous University of
Barcelona, University of Plymouth, Aston University at
Birmingham, University of Wales Cardiff Institute, University
of Porto, University of Lisbon, and the School of Fine Arts in
Brussels.
The posts he has held include, among others, co-ordinator of
the doctor’s programme “Public space and urban
regeneration” (1995-2002) and academic director of the
master’s course on urban design organised by the Portuguese
Design Centre, the University of Barcelona and the Barcelona
Design Centre, 1999-2002. In 1986 he was distinguished with
the City of Barcelona’s Award for Comics for the importance
of his academic research and activity.
In his long career in artistic research he has led the
ARTCOM project, funded by CIRIT in Catalonia, 1986-1991;
PECO (UE) “Interdisciplinary methods in fine arts education”,
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