Stained Glass for Democracy

The violence of October 1st was followed by repression, censorship, ideological jail, exile, abuse of power ... everything that a conventional democracy should detest.

The original idea was "Stained Glass for the Republic" which, even if it does not exist, is better than today's reality. But now it is not for the Republic ... now it's about democracy, justice, rights and both individual and collective freedom.

So, what can we do to not shut up, to resist, not to let us be silent, repressed, collapsed...?

It's hard to look ahead and see something other than doubts, traps and fears. But it costs even more to stop feeling the sadness of October 1st and also** the sadness that stems from being in jail or exiled. Nevertheless, we said that we would hold a referendum and we did. And now we are saying that we are a Republic and we will work to ensure this. And we will do it all together. Therefore, if you want it to happen, do what you can.

We are glass makers and we are trying to contribute to this cause with this project. Without pretensions, but ambitiously and no fear. This is a project that has neither rage nor hate or rancour. It has a lot of sense of humour, freshness, beauty -despite sounding cheesy- integrity, realism... we could even say that it is very contemporary.

You can take a look at the project and you may find that you can also do something. Then, you will also see that you cannot stop doing it.

Political Stained Glass

Indeed, it seems that these are the first political stained glass pieces in history. And it is not important if that is not the case, because they talk about people who will become a fundamental part of the history of politics. Ones for being brave and for having listened to the people. The others, for being cowards and for having deceived their people permanently.

The idea is to take the traditional role of the stained glass and use it in a contemporary version, changing religion for politics. Take the language of the religious stained glass, to graphically explain this part of our recent history.

Maybe we can get someone to understand it... It is also intended to make citizens and European governments look themselves in the mirror.

Production and Exhibition Phase

Our own funds have allowed us to start this project, but it is more ambitious than our savings. That's why we thought we needed more help.

In any case, since we are stubborn, we have already begun to move from paper to glass with the help of other European and Catalan stained glass makers. This allows us to lower the total budget of the Production phase.

In spite of this, we have to provide the materials that intervene, the exhibition structures or the transport of stained glass, whose destinations are half around the world.

For the Exposure Phase we need a scenic approach that allows viewers to enter and live stained glass from the inside, as you would do in a church, not just to see them. We have followed a very theatrical exposition approach. This includes metallic structures, music, light and a certain drama.

The drawings of the faces are only a quarter of the stained glass window: above it there is the State in the form of a monster, as shown in Marta Rovira’s drawing and M. Rajoy’s jacket, which will go around the upper part of all the stained glass windows. It’s the texture of the skin of a beast, a dragon, a reptile, a shield that is no other than the Spanish State. This kind of complex structure that puts itself at the service of power to avoid putting power at the service of people.

Donation Phase

Below the stained glass windows with the protagonists, there is a bunch of text to help the understanding, especially that of the final recipients of the pieces. Because once exposed, the set will be dismantled, and each stained glass will be donated to various international institutions and museums such as UNESCO, the European Court of Human Rights, the Carter Foundation, The Elders, Amnesty International, the Defender of the European People, among others. Below everything, some pieces of fusing will draw a garden, a utopia, a dream ... the future that most of us would like.

The act of giving the stained glass windows aims at two things: generate a piece of news and also a reaction from those who have the honour to receive them. The media must be able to make the European people understand what is going on in Catalonia in order to start having a collective consciousness, to position oneself, to vindicate it, to ask for explanations to their governments ...

The reaction is based on an essential assumption: stained glass has the ability to resist the passage of time up to 1000 years. When you are given a work of art with this capacity, you can’t pretend you haven’t seen, you cannot throw it away ... You have to save it, it is delicate, you have to protect it ...

This is the ultimate goal: they will have to take a look and, therefore, they will look themselves at the mirror and will realise what they have or haven’t, or even more, what they haven’t done yet despite knowing there are innocent people in jail because of their political ideologies, in spite of repression, corruption, or the fact that there is no separation of powers ... But keep in mind that among the recipients there are no governments or European states. They have already shown us that we are a problem for their interests and we no longer have to expect anything from them.

You can see an outline of how the set will look like in this example, with Oriol Junqueras’ stained glass:

About us

Gerard Balcells
Vitrallsrepublica.blogspot.com
Vitrall.blogspot.com
Vitrallers.com

Collaborations
Émilie Castanier, França
Lameetlesailes.com

Guy Cristina, Suïssa
Ecolevitrail.com

Michel Pradeilles, França
Vitrail de l'Agne

Lisa di Campli, Holanda
Dicampliglas.com

What are your donations for?

Stained glass requires a lot of hours of work and that's what we're already dealing with. This will be our contribution to the project: many hours of work. But the materials involved are many in quantity and in price. This is where we need you.

There are also many expenses for the exhibition because we want the staging to be up to the situation. A staging that allows the viewer to hear, rather than see. A visual immersion, but also auditory and sensory. We have to create the frames and metal structures, the installation of the spotlight, the sound equipment, the computer, the projector ... All this will be done by a specialized company and we will have to pay for it.

And then there is the cost of shipping the stained glass to all institutions. This involves packaging and transportation to New York, The Hague, London ... We also lowered costs in this section, looking for complicities between the CDRs and the international NACs to make deliveries. And this is where we will concentrate: on generating news on the media, as we did in May’s presentation in Switzerland, having a great impact on the media and social networks.

Calendar planned.

We started the production phase on Sunday, 30th September of 2018, on the eve of October 1st.
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We plan to open the exhibition in June 2019 and start sending the works in September 2019.

The calendar would then be as follows:

€ 5 - € 10 - € 20 - € 25 - € 30- € 75

Delivery: From November 2018 to April 2018

€ 40 - € 50

Delivery: Between June and August 2019

€ 60 - € 80 - € 125 - € 250 - € 350 - € 450 - € 600

Delivery: January to March of 2019

€ 1,500 - € 2,800 - € 3,500

Delivery: As of September 2019

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