La Ciutat Invisible: A one of a kind coop in the Sants neighborhood

Not knowing the Sants area, I wasn’t sure if I would find the store with my lousy sense of direction, but it couldn’t have been easier. It’s a dime’s toss from either Metro station: Pl. de Sants or Sants Estacio. As I approached the store, “La Ciutat Invisible,” I could instantly see that it was a cooperative of sorts – a bulletin board with notices of local news and events, information on the “okapa” situation, copies of George Orwell’s classic “1984” and Noam Chomsky’s “Hegemony or Survival: America’s Quest for Global Domination” in the store windows. Once inside, soft reggae music was playing, CDs, books, t-shirts and clothing, bags and backpacks, agendas, and children’s games were for sale, but what struck me most was the “warm and inviting atmosphere” so uncharacteristic in Barcelona stores. Here, the store attendant actually smiled and welcomed me in, while other shoppers looked at clothes and others worked online or sat around the large table chatting in the media room.

How did the idea come about?

Marc Dalmau, one of the members of the coop, explained its history. Before opening this new locale, there already existed the bookstore with the documentation centre in the back area of a neighborhood bar. But as the project expanded, the space became too small and they decided to form a cooperative and to move into a brand new space. This “cambio de chip” as Catalans say, involved forming a self-administering coop with members of the previous group, all local residents “de toda la vida” from the Sants neighborhood, since they couldn’t find an appropriate business model to start a business with and decided to form a cooperative instead.

The Sants neighborhood, well-known for its political, social, and economic movements, is very active in Catalan politics, so it fit right in. The coop focuses on alternative politics and economics and tries to bring to the forefront political discussion on current issues. They term themselves “anti-capitalists” and try to change the capitalist world in a small, but meaningful way, with their coop.

The coop, up and running for a year and a half, is composed of a labour project with six members and a political project with ten to twelve active members. They work in an “assembly system” where each person has an equal vote and decide all issues concerning the coop horizontally, not vertically. They attempt that both projects work together and support each other. Their documentation centre and library specializes in transition history after Franco’s death in 1975 until today, and is open to the public. The store sells books on critical theory, political movements, history, communication, social control, globalization, the Spanish Civil War and the Spanish Labour Movement, but also sells poetry books and current novels, and fosters a children’s area, offering different types of books and games that you can’t find elsewhere in the city. They also sell a clothing line including t-shirts, sweat shirts, and jackets, “urban wear” with a social message that helps spread the coop’s vision with striking images. They manage to keep costs down by having their own silk-screening studio where one of the partners, a designer, puts the final touches on the images that collectively the coop has decided on. For the moment, they have two series: “Nit” with poetic messages such as, “We’ve taken the humble decision not to go back” with an image of a wolf howling at the moon and another one is an image of a manta ray with the phrase, “No net can capture the entire sea.” The other series, “Ciutats” tries to recuperate historical memory of urban revolutions: Barcelona in 1936, Chiapas in 1994, Bologna in 1977 and Kronstadt in 1921, and are certainly well worth a look.

They also generate income by designing and printing t-shirts and clothes for other coops and sell their clothing line in various stores in town, in other cities in Catalonia: Gerona, Sabadell, Reus, as well as Valencia, Madrid, and Bilbao.

How do you become a member?

“Everyone is welcome to join, those like-minded and those with different political inclinations, because only then can change happen. There’s an interesting mix already: neighbors, immigrants, and foreigners. If you’re involved in any social, political, or economic movement and need documentation or a space to work or need to research online, make flyers, or network with others, just come by.” Members pay 10 euros a month, which entitles them to free internet access, discounts on store items, news bulletins, etc. They also offer conferences and talks every month on current issues happening in Barcelona and throughout the world. For example, they recently had a conference on problems in Oaxaca, Mexico and will have up-coming conferences on prostitution in Barcelona and housing issues in Seville.

Are there any other coops like this in Barcelona?

Marc mentioned that there are a few: “La Torna” in Gracia but most of the coops are in the Sants area: an occupied centre, “Can Vias,” Maleae, a tea coop, and a video store coop with alternative movies. In May, they organized a “Mercado de Intercambio” in Pl. Osca, a minute’s walk from the coop whose slogan was “We abolish money for a day.” Not only did the local coops participate, but the neighbors got involved by creating a species of “exchange yard sale” where people simply exchanged one thing for something else… “One person’s trash is another’s person’s treasure.”

Why the name?

Marc explained that it’s a play on the title of one of Italo Calvino’s books, “Las cuidades invisibles” where the legendary Marco Polo describes his trips through impossible cities to Khublai Khan where the personas of the book invent, think, live, and construct imaginary cities. In the coop’s case, our invisible city is one that’s resistant and insurgent, that can’t be seen, not because it’s invisible, but because it doesn’t see itself adequately and because it wants to negate its existence from the holders of the social order and the status quo…

What are your plans for the future?

The project holds a lot of promise. The coop hopes to increase the labour project by offering respectable and dignified work contracts; increase the size of its member base; raise store profits; and expand their clothing line to other cities in Spain. But it doesn’t end there, since all of the members are involved in other personal projects, they’d like to publish books and social investigation reports. They’ve already started, the coop’s first book’s entitled, “Hedonia” by Joan Fernandez and Myriam Moya and was created in a totally unconventional way: first came the images and then the text; it’s quite unique and well worth a trip to check it out.

For more information:

La Ciutat Invisible
Riego, 35 baixos
Barcelona 08014
93.298.99.47

www.laciutatinvisible@moviments.net

Metro L5-L1 Pl. Sants or L3-L5 Sants Estacio
Hours: Monday – Saturday 10 a.m. to 14:00 and 17:00 to 21:00