Homenatge al Viaducte de Girona (1974 - 2012)
At the invitation of Bòlit, Centre d'Art Contemporani, Girona, Jorda Planellas and Oliver Walker produced a temporary project in public space during the Land Art Festival in Girona, May, 2011.
They took as their starting point the city's viaduct which was completed in 1974 during the tourism boom of the 1970's, and upon which the main train link between Barcelona and France stills operates today. With the proposed completion of the AVE (high speed rail link) in 2012, the city currently proposes to demolish the viaduct. The artist team decided to create a temporary homage to this doomed viaduct by carving a channel through a reed bed in the river Onyar, right in the centre of the city; a channel that mimicks the form of the viaduct, as it carves its way through the city centre.
The work is a homage to an architectural structure that is still in existance, but under threat. Several prominant architects and engineers from the city have proposed that the structure could be put to other uses, such as a 'green highway' above the city, allowing bicycle users safe and speedy access to the city centre.
At first glance, the reeds of the bed hide the artists' intervention. After noticing the channel, it may be mistaken for a naturally formed channel through reed beds, but viewers will quickly notice its unusually straight nature. A label at the ideal viewing point on the footbridge features an ariel plan of the section of the viaduct from which the man-made channel takes its form.
The river will slowly regain its course and remove the channel which has been made in the reed bed.
