At the second meeting I presented each of my friends with three of the same gift: one to keep for themselves, one to be placed somewhere special in Barcelona, and the other to remain with the exhibition. For example, Rubén, who was one of the first HIV aids activist in the country, took me to the Temple of Augustus in Barcelona. During our first meeting he told me that the meaning of a place can be represented through music as well as visually. The tibetan chime I gave Rubén as a gift, when rung, opens a space of peace and safety (image 6, facing page) . Making this sound in this ancient place was symbolic of Rubén’s role in creating a safe and peaceful place for people living with HIV/AIDS in modern Barcelona (image 7, facing page) . When I meet Nohelia she was in the process of officially changing her name from the one she was given at birth to the name she has always had inside herself – Nohelia. Her meaningful place is the Gender Identity Clinic at Hospital Clínic, where her realignment surgery is taking place ( image 8, right ) . The gift I gave her was three small boxes with three small scrolls inside. To complete the gift she wrote ‘Nohelia’ on two small scrolls and placed them in two of the boxes, one for the exhibition and one to take home (image 9, right) . In the other box, she placed a scroll with the name she was given at birth and left this on the beach to be taken by the tides. A crucial aspect of this art piece was to learn about the places and spaces of Barcelona from my collaborators rather than tourist maps and destinations. To do this I only visited places that my collaborators took me and the shops I discovered while searching for their gifts. My relationship with Barcelona is bound to the material and ephemeral moments I shared with my friends. Our collaboration revealed an LGBTQ refugee topography of Barcelona that controverts, perhaps even disrupts, the iconic Barcelona of Antonio Gaudi and the Castelleres. When assembled together in the exhibition, the images, texts and gifts share a story of collective spatial practices and experiences that is a contribution to ongoing reconfigurations of the world. Despite their struggle to attain full, legal citizenship, LGBTQ refugees, as evidenced by my collaborators, can and do create meaningful places, material cultures and social networks that exceed the bare life of formal documentation. ~
Thomas Strickland
images: 8 Nohelia touching the sign at the entrance to the Gender Identity Clinic at Hospital Clinic. 9 One of Nohelia’s three gifts, beside a photograph of the three boxes and scrolls. Exhibited at Sala d’ exposicions del Districte de Gràcia
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