A slight shift at the junction of the worlds

In 2020 and 2021, the border area between France and Spain will host the architectural residency program of the Maison de l'Architecture Occitanie-Pyrénées. Hosted by Galeria Horizon in Colera, Odysseas Yiannikouris and Alessandra Monarcha, both architects and artists, were selected from 47 teams of emerging practices to explore the border landscape.

They intervene in a health context which, during the year, gave back to the notion of border its original meaning: line of protection, line of management of flows and bodies. This meaning, some have tended to forget, thinking that their openness is no longer revocable. The line is fine, and it is with tightrope walkers that they intervene in the territory.

Today, they offer the public the opportunity to discover the landscape through their eyes, through simple interventions and almost already there. Accompanied by photographer Claire Lavabre, they initiate a new narrative of the joining of worlds in several acts: an exhibition, initially presented in the Galeria Horizon, an atlas to invite both residents and passers-by to discover a less known part of the tourist coast, and an act of construction as an invitation to collectively take care of a natural and built environment.

Thus, they open a new public space open to all, a place of beauty to be felt and to be protected, a place that is no longer a place of separation but rather of reconnection.

The exhibition shows the result of the work of exploration and narration of the territory between Cerbère, PortBou and Colera. Thus the photographic work of Claire Lavabre, the maps drawn from the walks, the models, the collection of samples, invite to an immersion in the exploration carried out, a discovery of the situations.