The French philosopher Bruce Bégout explored suburban reality in a talk that eas part of the Open City cycle and which took place on February 24 at the CCCB.

On 24 February 2014, the philosopher and writer Bruce Bégout, one of France’s leading thinkers today, spoke in the Open City cycle. In his lecture, titled "Outskirts" he explored the reality of suburbs, the part of the city that has grown most unrestrainedly in recent decades and also the setting of hitherto unknown lifestyles and cultures. Peripheral areas are spreading and are far from disappearing but Bégout understands this type of banal urban sprawl as a “space of disappearance”. When today’s individual seeks anonymity, or flees from the social control and promiscuity entailed by contact with others, he or she no longer vanishes into the myriad urban centres but into the diffuse uniformity of the city’s outlying areas. The suburbs are then a space of flight, promising the individual the chance of being ignored, a retreat from life shared with others, or a refuge in which to find a bolt-hole in the private domain. But what kind of society generates this need for escape? Bégout’s lecture was presented by Neus Ballús, screenwriter, film director and author of The Plague (2013), a film that chronicles the lives of five people in the periphery of metropolitan Barcelona and which has received several awards.

This event is part of the "Europe City" initiative