The project

The project “Fragile Monumentality and Non-Institutional Heritage Production in Spain: A Representative Catalogue (MoFra)” is a project led by the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya and funded by the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities of the Government of Spain (grant reference: PID2023-148529NA-I00). It was selected through a competitive funding call.

The MoFra project stems from the identification of an area of monumentality and heritage that has not yet been systematically studied. This is what we have termed “fragile monumentality”: the physical signs and marks in space that are spontaneously and freely created by individuals and social groups to express their own memorial messages, whether related to mourning, political demands, or artistic expressions of belonging to a particular group.

Unlike cultural heritage as traditionally understood, “fragile monumentality” is characterised by its production outside institutions and beyond the reach of social groups that can access these institutions or influence their policies. Institutions and groups with full access to them are privileged in their ability to shape public space, including from a memorial perspective. However, reality opens up cracks through which space becomes imbued with memories and messages through different forms, material languages, and temporalities. These are often anonymous, spontaneous, elusive, and ephemeral. In short, they are fragile.

The project’s first objective is to conceptualise and systematise this area of cultural heritage, which has received little attention as a distinct field of study. To this end, it proposes a review of the terms and concepts associated with monuments, heritage, and memory, in order to develop a deeper understanding of the phenomenon. The main objective is to produce a representative catalogue of fragile monumentality: a document inspired by taxonomic principles that identifies the different types and subtypes of this heritage and establishes its main characteristics. The catalogue will not focus exclusively on formal aspects, but will also consider the specific features of the languages employed, the social role of these elements, and their anthropological implications.

The catalogue will focus on Spain, while contextualising its findings, wherever possible, in relation to other international practices. Its development will involve bibliographic and press research, archival work, and fieldwork, including interviews with the agents who create, receive, and participate in the establishment of fragile monuments. The research will also include spatial surveys and ethnographic records, as well as an analysis of a possible “fragile” aesthetic, which is often dismissed because its characteristics diverge from traditional artistic canons.

In addition, the project sets out specific research objectives linked to the research areas pursued by the group’s members. These include the study of heritage creation and reception in urban peripheries, the memorialisation of migrant populations and people experiencing homelessness, among other groups, as well as the relationship between monumentality and gender. The project will also examine the role of destruction, vandalism, and lack of maintenance in heritage production, in this case through the disappearance or deterioration of heritage elements.

Ultimately, the project aims to establish a distinct field within heritage studies that encompasses forms of heritage-related spatial production that do not follow institutional mechanisms and instead operate according to diverse logics involving characteristics, forms, processes, practices, agents, spatiality, and temporality. This is an interdisciplinary field that brings together, at the very least, art studies, architecture, heritage studies, anthropology, philosophy, history, and archaeology.