We took part in ARCADE’s fourth session in Barcelona, Souvenir City, part of the first cycle Inhabiting the Boiling Point, alongside Jorge Dioni López and Mesura.
The conversation explored the forces reshaping contemporary cities through tourism, and the role data plays in making these transformations legible. We reflected on how alternative data sources once made it possible to map and diagnose Barcelona’s rapid touristification when official information was absent or too slow to respond. Those tools helped describe a phenomenon that was transforming urban life faster than institutions could measure it.
While public data has become more precise, many of those alternative traces have disappeared as tourism itself continues to evolve. This raises urgent questions: what role do we play in producing these cities? Can we imagine forms of tourism that do not dissolve the local? And how do we sustain permanence, belonging, and everyday life in places increasingly designed for the visitor?
Debating about souvenir city at Roca Gallery
