Madrid será. Paco Graco

Paco Graco and I began in February 2017 to salvage shop signs from businesses that are gradually disappearing. Over the past eight years, and having salvaged more than 300 signs, we have been able to accompany them in their final days, lay them to rest and mourn a city of which we can now barely see any trace. Our work has allowed us to witness first-hand the ravages wrought by nostalgia on contemporary thinking; many people do not even remember the shops whose signs we display, and yet everyone claims to miss them.

After all these years of preserving heritage and interacting with so many people, we ask ourselves: what makes us yearn for a past we do not know? What triggers nostalgia, and what sustains it?

Heritage defines our identity but, as Pablo Arboleda says, it is more of a mirage than a mirror. As people with a history, we aim to build our own from the present. Remembering without nostalgia will allow us to build our future from our roots. Paco Graco aims to be a project for the future, helping us to imagine a Madrid for the 22nd century.

The courtyard reopens to the public with a range of activities, transforming it into a living space and forum for debate where we can discuss the urban transformations to which La Casa Encendida has also contributed over its 20-year history.

Those who opened its doors a century ago and those who closed them the day before yesterday embrace us as we shape the future together. We want to move towards that future by following their example. We can change everything whilst continuing to draw inspiration from and carry on their ways of shaping the neighbourhood and the city. May their ways become our own: down-to-earth, grassroots, collective, supportive, boisterous, vibrant, chaotic, proud and radiant. May there, at the very least, amidst all this radiance, remain a little of all this.

This programme has been designed and put together by Paco Graco. With texts by Miriam Martín, graphic design by Ricardo Barquín Molero and a traditional typeface from Manufacturas Tipográficas Madrileñas. A thousand thanks to Las Víctimas Civiles for the title of the festivities, thanks to Un Piano Preparado for that start in 2022, and thanks to the Abril García family for everything, always. Thank you, Paca.