FIGUERES – PARIS: 5 hores 30 minuts
Pau Faus and Pere Grimau
B-Side Books
Catalan
Hardcover
Edition 30/100
136 pages
140 x 235 mm
2011
ISBN 9788461537884
December 19th 2010. The first high-speed train between Spain and France departs Vilafant railway station (Figueres, Spain). Destination: Paris, Gare de Lyon. From now on, the 900 km. between Figueres and Paris will be done in 5 hours and 30 minutes. That same day, and from those same railway stations, two people started a simultaneos walking action. At the exact moment when the inaugural train departed, Pau Faus walked out from the Gare de Lyon (Paris, France) and started walking towards Figueres. At the same time, Pere Grimau walked out from Vilafant railway station (Figueres, Spain) and started walking towards Paris. Every 5 minutes both repeated simultaneously the same action: they stopped, they made a frontal picture of the place they were at, and they continued walking on their direction. The new temporal distance between Figueres and Paris framed the length of this double journey. 5 hours and 30 minutes later, when the train reached its destination, both walkers took their last picture and ended the journey wherever they were. During that time, each of them walked approximately what a high-speed train travels in 5 minutes”. This text introduces the book ‘Figueres-Paris: 5 hours 30 minutes’ edited and distributed by Bside books (limited edition 100 copies) and funded by the IV Agita grants of Figueres (Girona). This work started from that usual statement that claims “Time is today’s distance”. Our project took the new 5 hours 30 minutes ‘distance’ between Figueres and Paris, and returned it to its primary state by walking it. The end result of this action was an improvised exploration of the territory (framed both by a predetermined direction and use of time) that allowed us to compare two very different urban environments. The simultaneity of our action offered also a performative interpretation of the exercise. While we were walking, I liked to think that what Pere and I were really doing was to photograph each other (face to face) simultaneous and repeatedly from 900 km. Despite this, and beyond other possible interpretations, the main objective of the project was very clear. It was about confronting two opposite ways of interacting with the territory: Fleetingness and Presence.
(source: https://artphileinlibrary.edcat.net/item/figueres-paris-05-hores-30-minuts)
About the Artist
Pau Faus (b. 1974, Barcelona) is an architect and a visual artist, living and working in Barcelona, Spain. His work is based on the exploration of today’s forms of urbanity, both physical and emotional, in order to activate autonomous and subjective interpretations of the urban behaviour. He works mainly by interacting with the local ‘ways of doing’, convinced that only through the knowledge of these everyday life practices (with its forms of conscious or unconscious resistance) one can get to understand the unique particularities of any urban place. He has made several projects and workshops in Europe and South–America.
(source: https://u-jazdowski.pl/en/programme/residencies/residents/archiwum-rezydentow/pau-faus)
Pere Grimau is a documentary photographer based in Barcelona.
(source: https://webgrec.ub.edu/webpages/000010/cat/pgrimau.ub.edu.html)
About the Publisher
B-Side Books (Self Produced & Limited Editions) is an independent editorial project whose philosophy is to be a platform for the self-production and distribution of limited editions and books related to urban mobility and the interpretation of the territory produced and transformed by these movements. Created by Carlos Albalá & Ignasi López, B-Side Books explores different and carefully curated ways of materialising the work of artists in the world of printed publication
(source: https://bsidebooksblog.wordpress.com/about/)
