“I open this Twitter account in search of an opportunity. I need to talk about how I’m feeling.” With this sentence began, on the 1st of December of 2010, Plácido Moreno’s Twitter, @Placido_Mo. You could follow (practically in real time) the story of a man in chronic unemployment, with depression, abandoned by his wife and with an insurmountable mortgage debt that eventually lead the bank to the expropriation of his flat. With tweets and pictures, he explained his day to day trying to get by living in the streets.
Two weeks later, the media filtrated that Juan Carlos, Martín, Germán, Inma and Toni were behind Placido_Mo. They had all lived in the streets. It was an initiative of the “We all deserve and opportunity” campaign by the Arrels Foundation. Even if Placido_Mo was pseudonym, Plácido Morales had existed. He died the 10th of October 2010 at the age of 52. He had spent 10 years in the streets. Even now, every Monday at noon, Los Plácidos (as they call themselves) meet up and decide what message they want to share on social media. The limit: 140 characters.
The discovery of this initiative is the trigger for this artistic project to get started. There is also the need to explore mixed creative territories, where the different artistic disciplines come together. The project is centred on a very specific scenario: the streets of our cities. And also on very specific protagonists: people who have slept in these streets and who will become what the Rimini Protokoll Theatre Company defines as everyday experts (people who normally wouldn’t act and who are also seen as “cultural strangers”). They are the ones who have the information that feeds this project.
What makes a particular location interesting? When you “visit” a place, it is because of the history it hides, usually part of History itself (the one featured in books). How can a place that does not have an artistic aureole or that is not a place of cultural or economic interest capture the attention of a “visitor”? This project wants to delve into the relationship between site-city-personal experience and also on the mechanisms that make this impersonal space of transit (street) into a meeting place, a place of exchange, and of both social and artistic interest.
Find more information on Plácido Mo here.