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INCURSION/ EXCURSION, A ritual-walk to reclaim public spaces through water, 2024.

A collective ritual-walk designed to explore the role of water in the transformation of popular housing and its influence on social structures. This activity took place within Incursión/Excursión, a program of public interventions curated by cultural mediator Ane Rodríguez and organized by SAREAN, a cultural space in the city of Bilbao.

This ritual-walk unfolded as a route through Bilbao, visiting various water-related sites such as fountains, communal washhouses, and reservoirs—spaces that once served as crucial meeting points for women, facilitating exchange, gathering, and communication. The act of ritualizing walking emerged from the need to reclaim public space as an accessible and inclusive domain for women, as theorized by Simone de Beauvoir, Rebecca Solnit, and others. To mediate the experience, a symbolic object was created: "the botrejo", a contemporary reinterpretation of the traditional botijo, reimagined for collective use.

The botrejo functioned as a connector, offering water to participants throughout the journey. In this way, the activity invited reflection on shifts in social structures following the advent of running water, encouraged the resignification of the spaces visited, and fostered a temporary sense of community for the duration of the walk.

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