The Catalan writer spoke with Shared Spaces about public space and how this should be conquered by current citizens, as did the generations that precede them. 

Javier Pérez Andújar, a Catalan philologist and essayist who was awarded the 2004 City of Barcelona Prize, has been interviewed by Shared Spaces. He took the occasion to speak about public space when he was visiting the Centre of Contemporary Culture of Barcelona (CCCB) to take part in the debate “Life on the Fringes: Against Cultural Homogeneity”, which was programmed to coincide with the exhibition “Pasolini Roma”. Pérez Andújar considers that, in recent years, citizens have witnessed a major change in the public space – private space paradigm. “People imagine that one’s home is one’s place of refuge from which you cannot be expelled” but “it is now being demonstrated with the evictions that the authorities can force you out whenever they feel like it.” Pérez Andújar believes that this situation “may have the effect of bringing about a re-evaluation of public space” because this is what “will truly defend you”. Similarly, he recalled that “public space has not been conquered for once and for all but must be re-conquered every day” and “if we don’t defend it, we’ll end up losing it”.