Uphill
During a month’s residency at AADK Casa Negra in the small town of Blanca (Spain) I lived uphill.
Blanca (6500 people) is in Murcia’s Ricote Valley and surrounded by irrigated horticulture and rocky hills. On the hills you find a network of small streets dating to Morish times that lead to the remnants of the town’s former castle.
A century ago, downhill were traditional family houses and Blanca’s main church - Iglesia de San Juan Evangelista. A bit more uphill were smaller houses. And higher-up was for the for herdsmen and their families and animals. Together this is the old part of Blanca, the casco antiguo.
Times have changed. Quite a few houses are in a bad shape, vacant, for sale. There are few people on the street. Downhill, houses are better. A few sites downhill have been cleared and wait for a developer, but this part of the town is not very attractive any more for new residences. Uphill the situation is problematic; houses have been abandoned and are disintegrating.
For the municipality the casco antiguo is a difficult case - renovation is costly. And who wants to live uphill – not older people and families with children. People don’t want to climb uphill to reach a small house without public space.
Uphill exceptions are the house and studio of Blanca’s renowned aquarelle painter Pedro Cano, and AADK Casa Negra. Casa Negra is an artist collective that has been leasing a 2010 municipal project of a row of houses renovated into an artwork and residential space. The centre showed that development is feasible. It bought an adjacent house and works on its restauration as a heritage place where people once lived together with their animals.
The series of some 20 photo’s starts downhill and gradually moves uphill.
Click to enlarge
