La Seat: Fàbrica de Transformacions

The exhibition portrays how the company SEAT triggered a set of profound transformations that extended far beyond the automotive sphere.

The establishment of SEAT had a decisive impact on the country's economy, urban planning, architecture, culture and politics, becoming a central actor in the modernisation of Catalan and Spanish society.

The exhibition, divided into five sections, begins its journey with the reasons that led to the installation of the factory in Barcelona, a fact that accelerated the industrialisation of the Zona Franca and drove the creation of a modern industrial colony in the current neighbourhood of La Marina.

This process positioned the company as a symbol of the Francoist regime at a time of economic opening and the redefinition of international alliances.

One of the main axes of the exhibition is the analysis of the mechanisms of control over workers and the clandestine struggle of the workers' commissions. Labour demands at SEAT became a vanguard element in the workers' movement for democracy.

The exhibition pays special attention to the strike of 18 October 1971, which culminated in the police occupation of the factory and the fatal shooting of the worker Antonio Ruiz Villalba.

La Seat: Fàbrica de Transformacions concludes its itinerary by tracing the workers' memory in the neighbourhood of La Marina and reviewing the brand's influence on contemporary culture and society.

The exhibition brings together archival photographs, historical objects and documents, as well as artistic installations that invite reflection on the contrast between the struggle for the preservation of memory and the neighbourhood's current social and urban transformations.

The exhibition will occupy the newly refurbished Cos de Guàrdia. The curators Jordi de Miguel (Barcelona, 1980) is a contributing journalist for CRÍTIC SCCL.

He has been a scriptwriter for the comics Històries de la Model and La SEAT: motor de llibertat (Barcelona Llibres) and the graphic adaptation