Saturday october 2nd Nau Côclea propose Walter Benjamin memorial path from Banyuls to Portbou. The event is in the program of the International Walter Benjamin Conference organised by Museu Memorial de l’Exili and Walter Benjamin chair of the University of Girona.
The route follows the way between Banyuls and Porbou that Walter Benjamin walked guided by Lisa Fittko to pass across the french spanish border and at the end of which he lost his life
Every year Côclea invites an artist to share his or her contemporary view of this facts. The invited in 2016 has been Anna Dot, and her performace is titled They hid behind the trees. The name recalls the homonymous novel by Ray Bradbury (1953) and François Truffaut’s film Fahrenheit 451 (1966) where men and women had become book people and had learned full books to preserve them in their minds from the fury and the destruction of totalitarism and war. Anna Dot retakes the story to wittness about literary and philosophical texts by Walter Benjamin, Hannah Arendt and other autors affected by spanish censorship during Franco’s dictature. She has worked with a team of readers comming from Portbou and other places in Catalonia.
The activity starts in Porbou at 8am and it is necessary to register by phone at 34-972125161. A bus will take the walkers from Portbou to Banyuls where the path starts. The price of the bus is 5€. Good mountain shoes are important and walkers should have basic physical training. The path is three hours up (700 meters) and about 2 hours down ending at Portbou.
Ruta Walter Benjamin 2016
They hid behind the trees, performance by Anna Dot
Book people: Roser Cabré, Víctor Garcia Tur, Núria Gómez Gabriel, Anna Pahissa
Audiovisual recording: Edgar Díaz , Palma Lombardo
More info about Anna Dot http://annadot.net/
Curator Clara Garí
A project by Nau Côclea