Nit de llum i patrimoni a Sineu
Dear night walkers,
Once again, and it’s already edition number nine, we invite you to stroll and discover some streets and places we haven’t been before. As always, we have tried to combine light, creativity and ingenuity to highlight some corners and the heritage of our village, with an eye on the present and its dilemmas, which are ours.
We hope you enjoy the walk and that the darkness will illuminate us.
Col·lectiu Contrallum
Thanks to Biblioteca municipal, Bisbat de Mallorca, Bojos per Mandelbrot, Brigada municipal, CEIP Rodamilans, Dimonis de sa Cova des Fossar, Díngola, Flowerscence, Gent Gran de Sineu, IES Sineu, Iguzzini, Joan Bonnín, Joan Vanrell, Massay Fotografia, Mobofest, Muchal Foundation, Nicole Roth, Organització Mater Misericordiae, Pep Lluís Pol, Policia Local, Protecció Civil and Sineu en Bici i a Peu.
Special thanks to the neighbours who have opened their homes to set up and/or give us light, to the artisans who have helped us in the preparation and assembly of the constructions; to the bars and restaurants who have collaborated with the collection of materials, to the citizens who have provided them, and to the team of volunteers who have made this event possible.
1. The Hospice
2. The Streets Souls
3. No!
4. Sa Teulera
5. The Art of Knowledge
6. Sineu en Bici a PeuI
7. The Xarxes of Tomorrow
8. And you, where are you going?
9. Mov-i-Vent
10. The Neules of the Convent
11. I shit on Sineu!
The street route:
Carrer de Ponent, carrer de les Parres, carrer de l’Hospital, plaça del Pou d’en Rebassa, carrer Sant Josep, carrer Retir, carrer de les Penyes, carretera de Llorito, carrer de sa Teulera, carrer del Camp, carrer de la Constitució, carrer de Palma, carrer de Son Massip, carrer Campana, carrer Ramon Llull, plaça de sa Quintana, plaça dels Reis de Mallorca, carrer Esperança, carrer del Palau carrer del Bisbe, carrer l’Hospital.
In 1918, Proyecto de Casa-Hospicio was written. The technician was guided by the current hygienic theories, which led him to build wide, well-aired and illuminated spaces – prioritising the building’s functionality over aesthetics—and a garden in which patients could sunbathe during their stay. The demolition of the prior building – the old Hospital I casa de la Vila -, the restoration of the Saint Joseph chapel’s façade, the creation of the garden and a new building which could be accessed from Carrer de Ponent were contemplated.
The main façade, which stands back in comparison with the street, presents a base made of stone and a superior body made of “marés”, a common stone used in construction in Mallorca. The sculptural works with modernist-like ornaments stand out, made by the sculptor Sebastià Alcover i Gacias, Piscol (Sineu, 1871 – Palma, 1961). There is a relief in the centre which represents the Immaculada and two coats of arms: the local one on the left and the surname Crespí one on the right, honouring the director and benefactor of the construction of Casa-Hospici, Lluís Crespí I Niell, Guillemet (Sineu 1880 – 1054).
The objective of the hospice was to shelter orphans and indigents and to take care of ill people since its founding in the 18 th Century. This social task had been conducted to prevent begging and roaming. The Daughters of Charity of Saint Vincent de Paul managed the hospice from 1866 to 1977. Since then and until 2011, it was managed by the town council.
After some years of being closed, it was restored and reopened thanks to an agreement signed by the town council and the organisation Mater Misericordiae, which is currently in charge of its management. This entity works to improve the life quality of people with functional diversity by promoting the achievement of a full and autonomous life as possible, respecting their dignity, intimacy and right to be different.
Today, we want to value the work done in the hospice. For this reason, the organisation Mater Misericordiae has collaborated with Contrallum by lending the painted plates in this installation, which were made by the users of this entity in the artisanal occupational workshops.
Carrer de les Ànimes is a cul-de-sac perpendicular to carrer Sant Josep. Before the 17 th Century, it was known as Carrer de les Parres. However, since 1756 it is referred to as Carrer de l’Hort de les Ànimes. With the establishment of the official nomenclator in Spanish in 1863, its name became Calle de las Almas. In 1987, with the Catalan normalisation of street names, the Informative Commission of Culture decided to recover the name Carrer de les Ànimes, missing the opportunity to recover its original name in Catalan.
The word ‘ànima’ (soul) and its plural is a rooted noun in Mallorca, for its presence in our daily lives or vocabulary. Since a few years back, the Nit de les Ànimes is being recovered, which is a holiday traditionally celebrated around All Saint’s Day and whose aim was to bring the world of the dead closer to the younger. Regarding the vocabulary, we have a lot of expressions which contain this word: “with the whole soul”, “to be a little soul”, “entrust one’s soul to God”, “in body and soul”, “a full soul”, “a lost soul”… in the Catalan-Valencian-Balearic Dictionary by Alcover and Moll the expression “to give soul” also appears as a synonym of baptism, which was only used in Sineu.
Hence, with the children from CEIP Rodamilans primary school, we wanted to play with the word and the street name, creating this installation of souls that go out for a walk at night to remember who we are, where we come from and where we go.
Sineu’s population nucleolus extends over an enlarged hill with a cliff in the south which has given urban names to ses Escoles de cas Tintorer, es Mirador, sa Costa de son Cleda, sa Riba, the staired street currently known as Escales del Palau or ses Penyes. The latter, located in the west of the town where one of the two big groups of windmills. Arranged on the side of the cliff, there have up to seven windmills: Costa d’en Macota or de n’Andreu (there are some remains of its base), d’en Puput or de ses Penyes, Nou or de ca ses Peretes, d’en Pep Gomila, d’en Crespí (disappeared), d’en Feliu and d’en Collet (on the oder side of the road to Lloret).
Nowadays we must take care of and preserve the environment and rural settings. For this reason, we must also foster sustainability, also in the livestock productive system. It must be careful and respectful with the environment, people, and animals, and intensive livestock farming projects are not the way to go, since they consume lots of natural resources like water, which is limited on our island. Moreover, these projects produce lots of residues and polluting gases which are very detrimental for public health. For this reason, “A Sineu no ens toquis els ous!” (Revindicating slogan against the construction of a poultry macro-farm).
In November 1935, the tile artisan Miquel Dalmau I Miraller (Sineu 1901-1981) requested the construction of a new tile factory on the site, which had been recently acquired after the parcellation of the property Era de Son Gual. His brother, also the developer of the project, Gabriel Dalmau I Miralles (Sineu, 1906-1970) and he were the third generation of the family which worked on the production of tiles, pitchers, jugs, pots, water dishes, basins, and other objects made of clay. In 1965, this industry separated from the family Dalmau and was passed to the tile artisan Antoni Barceló I Amengual (Vilafranca, 1936-Sineu, 1992), who years later bought the contiguous warehouse, occupying the whole block.
Regarding the current Carrer de la Teulera, it remained nameless until 1987, when the Informative Commission of Culture decided to name it after the industry of the neighbourhood. Sadly, some years later, in May 1994, this centenarian industry, the only remaining one in Sineu, closed its doors.
After years of vindications in several points of the area asking for a secondary school –given that young students from the different villages of Mancomunitat del Pla de Mallorca had to attend schools in Inca and Manacor until then— an agreement in collaboration with the Ministry of Education and Culture, the Regional Ministry of Education and the Town Council of Sineu in order to build a high school in the local area known as Es Clapers d’en Vellana.
IES Sineu opened its doors during the 1999-2000 academic year. The centre has been in operation for teenagers for 25 years, offering them a better future and allowing them to meet young people from neighbouring villages, creating bonds and a feeling of belonging and love for the territory.
Currently, young students from nine different villages attend this centre: Ariany, Costitx, Lloret de Vistalegre, Llubí, Maria de la Salut, Petra, Sant Joan, Sencelles and Sineu (during the first years, there were also students from Montuïri and Santa Eugènia).
Thus, in this double installation, we invite you on a trip over your high school years, but we also want to pay homage to Public Education and to all the people who accompanied us during such an important stage of our lives. Education leads us to knowledge and curiosity, which are essential to building a better society. For this reason, we must always defend it.
It’s the second year that a group of passionate students of Maths collaborate with us. They are “Bojos per Mandelbrot”, who have created this installation to pay homage to the Polish mathematician Benoît Mandelbrot, father of fractal geometry and who, this year, celebrates the 100th anniversary of his birth.
Tribute to Mandelbrot:
When thinking about Warsaw, next to the Vistula River, one cannot stop imagining how the streets have seen children growing up, who later would become referents for humanity. We are talking about Frederic Chopin, Maria Sklodowska (Madame Curie) or Benoît Mandelbrot, who was born exactly 100 years ago.
This Polish mathematician was the creator of fractal geometry, a modern branch of mathematics which rebuilds the complexity of nature in a simple way. The merit of this method, which had already been explored by other scientists centuries before, is that from a simple idea, iterated on itself many times, it achieves very elaborate models of reality. We can perceive a tree as a set of trees (something that Delacroix already said), a cloud as a set of spheres within spheres or a mountain as a set of small mountains. Fractals nowadays illuminate areas of medicine, botany, plastic arts, cinema, music… and, logically, mathematics.
The music accompanying this installation is Einstein on the Beach: Knee Play 1, by Philip Glass Ensemble.
After enjoying a mathematical creation, we invite you to enjoy dance and music, which are two essential disciplines for culture and knowledge, and which have been always present in all societies around the world.
We encourage you, therefore, to enjoy a world where the muses of inspiration dance to the flowing rhythm of music, enriching our lives. With each movement and melody, we discover the beauty of creation, synonymous with living knowledge and culture, constantly reminding us of the value of what makes us human.
On September 23rd 1857, the Sineu Town Council commissioned the Andalusian surveyor Pedro Moreno y Ramírez to carry out a cadastral and topographical survey of the land and estates in the village. Moreno delivered to the Town Council the Geometric Plan of the jurisdictional district of Sineu and the Inventory of the rustic, urban and livestock wealth of Sineu in 1858. In 1864, he handed over the Millage of the rural, urban and livestock wealth of Sineu.
In this last document, the toponyms el Pati and els Patis are collected on plots of land concentrated around the Creu d’en Pastor. If we take the dictionary meaning that refers to a space that is not built on but that can be built on -a trast- these were areas adjacent to the town centre that, in little more than a century, have become part of the urban fabric. In 2007, the Pati de son Janer was built. The central garden area, between the buildings lining the Palma and Llorito roads, was incorporated into the urban nomenclature with this historic place name.
This installation has been made with the collaboration of “Sineu en Bici i a Peu”, a movement of a few for a lot with the aim of active mobility in Sineu. The project is inspired by the boys and girls who go to school at CEIP Rodamilans. Their desires and limitations in going to and from school independently and without a motor vehicle have stimulated the promoters of this project. According to data collected at the school, today, 40% of children would like to arrive at CEIP Rodamilans by bicycle, but the reality is that only 4% do so. The village has become more motorised in recent decades due to mobility policies that have prioritised cars, but in Sineu any daily journey on foot takes less than 15 minutes. In Sineu, boys and girls do not walk or cycle and, therefore, neither do their families. But we remember the words of the thinker and psycho-pedagogue, Francesco Tonucci: ‘If a town is good for children, it will also be good for everyone’.
The first Sineu’s first expansion district, following the plan drawn by the surveyor Gaspar Mas i Miralles Comelles, dates from 1869 and it was established on plots of land known as El Pati. In the regular layout with orthogonal streets and perpendicular to the current Carrer Ramon Llull, there were three cul-de-sac streets: carrer de la Glòria, carrer de la Campana and carrer de Llebeig.
Sixty years later, the adjoining Son Macip estate was divided into plots (1933); the opening of a new street -Carrer Son Massip, where we come from- from the Palma road, and the extension of Carrer de la Glòria and Carrer de Llebeig, set out a basic outline for the urban development that followed the model of the blocked street. As for Carrer de la Campana, it was a cul-de-sac until 1936, when the necessary land was acquired to open it up to Carrer Son Massip, thus giving it the continuity that it has today. This area, which is the result of the urban development operations described above, is the neighbourhood popularly known as Bonanova.
Plastic is a very resistant material and is easily dispersed; for this reason, plastic can be found in every corner of the planet, from the Arctic to Antarctica. Once plastic objects reach the sea, the marine fauna can ingest them and accumulate them in their interior, they can remain in suspension, rising to the surface, or they can finally sink to the bottom of the sea, taking decades to hundreds of years to degrade. In the Mediterranean we find a large amount of microplastics; in fact, between 21% and 54% of all microplastic particles in the world are found in the Mediterranean basin.
We must keep our waters clean and free of plastics because we must remember that the Earth is covered by 70% water (fresh and salt), and that water is essential and, at the same time, it is life. And that is why, as a kind of dystopia, we have made this sea with plastic, to denounce precisely that plastics and the sea cannot go hand in hand.
Creu de la Quintana Nova or Creu d’en Pastor (Pastor’s Cross) is first documented in 1632. Between 1883 and 1886, it was rebuilt due to its poor state of conservation. The promoter was the ecclesiastic Rafel Ignasi Rubí i Pocoví, who was in charge of the parish of Sineu. The costs were borne by a canon of La Seu, who had roots in Sineu, Mn Lluís Barbarín i Vanrell.
The new cross, a copy of the old one with the addition of the sculpture of the patron, is the work of the master builder Bartomeu Ferrà i Perelló and the sculptors Guillem Galmés i Socias and Llorenç Rosselló i Rosselló. It was solemnly blessed on 3rd May 1884, the holiday of the May Cross, by Canon Barbarín. Two years later, a stone pillar was placed around the cross, giving it the appearance which it still has today.
The Creu d’en Pastor is one of the three boundary markers in Sineu; these elements were located near the towns to mark them and to welcome or greet passers-by. This cross marks the urban limits of Sineu that lead to Lloret and to Palma. But, in Sineu, do we go up or down to Palma? As we can see in this picture, the Mallorcan language does not always lead us clearly to where we want to go. Or it does…
The street leading into the town, from the Lloret road, passing through Creu d’en Pastor and up to Carrer del Bisbe, was known as Carrer de la Esperança (Street of Hope) from the time of the official nomenclator of 1863. In 1938, the town council headed by the mayor Mateu Estela i Munar, from ca n’Estela, agreed to designate a section of this street -from Can Gacies to the exit of the town towards Lloret- with the name of Calle del Capitán D. Cristòbal Real [Cristòfol Real i Munar, from Can Real (Sineu, 1902 – Batalla de Terol, 1938)].
I kept this name until 1987 when, at the proposal of the Informative Commission of Culture, the first section was called Plaça del Reis de Mallorca, the second Plaça de la Quintana and the third Carretera de Llorito.
“Mov-i-Vent” invites us to listen to the sound of the wind, which passes through all the corners of our village, caressing our heritage with its constant wailing, and which, when it passes, it has already passed, because the wind is movement, as well as life itself is.
This installation aims to be a narrative of the changes and transformations which take place in towns, just as the winds, arrive and alter the structure of things. The movements and sounds of the wind create a symphony of life and memory. The places are the meeting points, the main corridors of the people, where everything converges and is renewed with every breath of air. “Mov-i-Vent” connects us with the past while embracing the changes of the present and the future.
The convent church of the Monastery of the Immaculate Conception faces Carrer de l’Esperança and Plaça del Palau; on the former, there is the Portalet and, on the latter, the Portal Major, with a Baroque doorway. Just after creating the doorway, inside the temple, we find the “batiport”, a rectangular-shaped enclosure made of wooden dams to prevent the outside air from entering directly into the interior when the door is opened. In addition, this space has a system for collecting any rainwater that might enter when it plummets; the floor has a slope ending in a perforation that crosses the live stone wall and leads the water out into the street.
The tradition of “neules” in Mallorca arrived after the Catalan conquest of Mallorca in the 13th century. It is a circular piece of paper on which all kinds of scenes are depicted, carved with great precision: it could be the Nativity, the Three Wise Men, the Star of the East or more cultural elements of the place where they are placed. Originally, neules were not used exclusively to decorate for Christmas, but also on other important days, such as Corpus Christi or the Assumption, although it is for Christmas that this tradition has been preserved.
In the olden days, the decorative neules were made with wafers, and were hung inside the churches. On Christmas Saturday, at midnight mass, when Cant de la Sibil·la (Song of the Sybil) was over, the sibyl used the sword to cut the threads of neules that were hanging from the temple’s shaft and the parishioners grabbed them, as if it were a game, and they had a candy to sweeten their mouths. At a certain moment, however, the change was made to paper, parchment or any other primitive material that allowed the decorations to be placed more practically.
We would therefore like to acknowledge the work of the Mallorcan neules artisans in recovering this decorative element, which is part of our material heritage. The neules of this installation have been made by the Sineu artisan Joan Bonnín.
The Confraria was a one-storey building with a roof slope, located on the corner of Bisbe and Quartera streets, which originally served as the Confraria’s shop where they collected the stately taxes and the annual census (annual stately taxes) and the taxes of those who came to the market. The confraternity’s assets were used to help the poor and needy and to promote the cult of the Virgin Mary. At the beginning of the 20th century it was the seat of the Municipal Council and, given its poor state of conservation, the building was demolished in 1915. Shortly afterwards, the Town Council donated the building to the neighbour, Joan Antoni Caldentey i Terrassa (Sineu, 1867 – 1921), on the condition that he would demolish it and set the new building following to the alignment established on Carrer del Bisbe.
At the top of the doorway there was a relief of the Maredéu dels Pobres, protecting some people with her cloak, under a semi-circular arch and surrounded by a canopy. It is completed, at the lower part, with the Sineu coat of arms with the inscription “Confraria de la Verge Maria dels Pobres” and the date 1594. When the building was demolished in 1915, these sculptures were preserved ‘on the façade of Mr. Caldentey’s house, thus indicating the place which the disappeared building used to occupy’.
In Mallorcan popular parlance, the expression ‘Me cago en Sineu!’, which gives its name to this installation, is well known. The Sineu writer Biel Florit explained the origin of this expression in one of his newspaper articles:
“Scratching the antiquity and using my imagination, I have been able to agree and conclude with all my fellow historians with whom I have spoken, that probably the origin of this rudeness assumed and freely taken for granted by an important part of our neighbours, has its origins centuries ago, when Sineu was the head of the region, with the residence of the magistrate Veguer, and also, of course, of the tax collectors. Oh, below you will find what you are looking for! Cash payments, tithes (ten percent of the crops), first fruits in obligations (offerings, alms, sacrifices, gifts from the daily arse-lickers). They used to do it when the Mother of God of August arrived, when the patron saint festivities are celebrated in the village of Sineu, even nowadays. And of course, people had to saddle up the mule, load the saddlebags and set off for Sineu… to pay! And this used to leave people with a very bad feeling. This is where the saying ‘me cago en Sineu’ (I shit in Sineu) comes from. Justifiably so, on the other hand.”