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Lara Almárcegui’s intervention in PLANTA’s environment
“Gravera Parada” wondered: What possibilities begin to appear when the excavation of a gravel pit stops?
More specifically, what happens when La Plana del Corb, the Sorigué industrial complex near the town of Balaguer, stops working for a day? The response took the form of an open day at the gravel pit on February 19, 2021 during which visitors experienced this usually noisy and bustling place as a place of contemplation, as well as a video featuring the documentation of the same gravel pit frozen.
The action was part of the project “Gravera Parada”, by the artist Lara Almárcegui, and preceded the opening of her exhibition “Graves” at the Centre d’Art La Panera in Lleida. The intervention is linked to the videographic work ‘Gravera’, which was part of the exhibition. The 10-minute piece was filmed in November 2020, and intertwines different images of the frozen gravel pit, in total silence and without any kind of activity.
The collaboration of Fundació Sorigué and Sorigué made it possible to materialize the idea long awaited by the artist of being able to stop a gravel pit to give new meaning to processes and materials inherently related to constant movement and mutability. Visitors who took part of the action were able to freely walk between the aggregate stockpiles and the belts that usually transport and classify them. With all the machinery stopped, the day passed with atypical calm and silence, totally opposite to the noisy and noisy atmosphere common in the gravel pit.
