Siluroño
Pool is Cool + Dallas
Parque del Ebro – Concéntrico 09
„Siluroño“ is not about the fish or fishing. It’s about stories that shape the mental map of citizens about public space or certain areas of a city.
These stories are often nothing more than prejudices, urban myths that someone heard of someone, rarely based on facts. However, they are a strong determinator of how people think about their environment, usually with a negative connotation, in the form of stigmata. About places that are unsafe, places that are expensive, places that are dirty, places that are inaccessible, places that are „owned“ by certain communities, places that are boring or places that are overcrowded or „only for the tourists“. As vague and imprecise they are, as important is their impact on the habits of people and subsequently the use and appropriation of public space and even urban developments in general, often with social and financial consequences.
Water is an exemplary case, often deemed polluted and unsafe. During our stay in Logroño and our research along the river Ebro, the ‚siluro‘ (catfish) played an important role in the image that people have of the river. Mostly depicted as a monster that eats everything (but that nobody has ever seen as such, only on social media), it became for us the symbol of our project that wants to question the role of the Ebro for the citizens of Logroño and the image they have of their river.
Our intervention for the 2023 edition of Concentrico will be a tribute to the Siluro, the animal and the symbol, and its habitat, the Ebro river. During the festival, installations are swift and stay only for a few days. As such, our objective is to make the most of these few days with a thorough activation of the Siluro pavilion.
The activations have the mythical fish as a centerpoint: catching and cooking Siluro; screening film(s) related to the fish, the river, the water; tribute rituals to the fish; multidisciplinary talks on the subject of the river and its relation to the city; fishermen and fisherwomen telling their stories; expeditions to search for the imaginary giant red Siluro; and maybe even a swim with the Siluros.
Therefore, our built infrastructure will adapt to the needs of these activities, shifting from being a kitchen, to a screen, a stage, a temple or a beach. It will evolve throughout the week.
The infrastructure will be built with the reclaimed panels from the 2022 installation Half Void Full Moon by Piovenefabi, for efficiency and as a tribute to the previous pavilion. Our idea is to re-use the panels by cutting them as little as possible, using the already existing shapes to create new ones.
Pool is Cool + Dallas
Dallas is an architectural collective born in June 2018 from the meeting of four young architect-builders.
We work on projects of various natures and scales – ephemeral or perennial, objects, installations or spaces – questioning the uses, practices and perceptions of space, the city, materials…
At a time of over-specialization, we are aiming more for a general practice, enhancing making and action; a practice between design and construction, between architecture, art and crafts. Dallas is for us a field of experimentation, a round trip between knowledge and doing.
POOL IS COOL, a non-profit organisation and think-and-do-tank based in Brussels, strives for the re-introduction of outdoor swimming in the European capital.
Unlike most major European cities, Brussels has no outdoor swimming facilities. Besides being a sports activity, outdoor swimming also promotes social interaction and provides much needed contact with the environment. As such, it has a strong impact on a city’s overall quality of life. While there were swimming places in Brussels up until the late 70s, including large open air swimming pools, they all eventually disappeared. Along with them a lively outdoor swimming culture was lost.
POOL IS COOL wants to revive the outdoor swimming culture of Brussels through the re-introduction of open air swimming places that are accessible to everyone. To create places for swimming, we see opportunities both in existing waters and new constructions. These can be places which are already publicly accessible today or will be in the future. However, it is important to bear in mind that a single pool will not be enough. A city of the size and diversity of Brussels needs and deserves multiple swimming opportunities. In order to put outdoor swimming on the public agenda and to encourage political initiatives, POOL IS COOL organizes actions in public space, realizes projects like temporary swimming places, does contextual research to gather and develop elementary knowledge, and stimulates societal debates to gain public support. To reach that goal we believe in sharing a decidedly positive message and in proactively answering questions that will be asked in future processes.
After first informal encounters in 2014, POOL IS COOL was established as an organisation in 2016. It’s an open collective of citizen experts with backgrounds in urbanism, architecture, psychology and a broad range of different socio-cultural contexts. For all its projects POOL IS COOL strongly relies on partnerships with other organisations for their specific expertise.
With the collaboration of
