Sagrada Família Street Fiesta • Wendy Cowan

Homage to the Sagrada Família and Eileen O'Shaughnessy, George Orwell's 'invisible' wife

Ode to Street Level Collectives

I travelled to Barcelona with my partner, Mark, to spend time with my niece and nephew, Stuart and Poppy, as they completed university placements – Poppy in a ceramics studio and Stuart in an ephemeral architecture postdoctoral program.

On the flight, I read Anna Funder’s Wifedom: Mrs Orwell’s Invisible Life. Landing in Barcelona, I felt the illusory weight of the word masterpiece. Gaudí’s glorious architecture and Orwell’s account of the Spanish Civil War in Homage to Catalonia circled my thoughts. So many people, artisans, and collaborators remain absent from the official scripts and records that uphold the myth of the solitary male genius. We are haunted by non/presence.

On our first evening, we met by coincidence (or was it!?) in the Plaça George Orwell in the Gothic Quarter. Stuart told us how, during the first months of his placement, his studio overlooked the Sagrada Família’s turrets. He sketched their fantastical details and inventive construction. Over sangria, Poppy spoke about a piece she and Stuart were working on in a shared studio in the Gràcia district. Inspired by the turrets, it included a wire frame, plaster of Paris, clay, and papier-mâché.

What began as a casual conversation unfolded into six days of making. By the end of the week, we stepped out onto the street with the Homage to the Sagrada Família. On the street it became an Ode to Street Level Collectives, honouring communities who create ‘uplifting’ street art.

Fruit turrets with ceramic mosaics of grapes, apples. pomegranates and loaves of bread on top of the apostle towers at the Sagrada Familia

Street artists L-R: Poppy Cowan, Wendy Cowan, Turret, Stuart Medcalf, Mark Goonan

Festa Major de Gràcia

As we created Ode to Street Level Collectives, the community living along Carre de la Legalitat were creating figures for the upcoming Festa Major de Gràcia. Word went up and down the street – what were we doing? A grandfather, grandmother, son, grandson and their dog visited our studio, we visited theirs. Acknowledging each others work through gestures and sketchy Catalan.

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Ghostly non/existences

Those cut from the action, the accreditation are present, have presence none-the-less. They are ghostly non/existences that teeter on the edge of being and nonbeing, actively co-creating the turrets, books, artwork, life on the street.

Creative Collective

Residents of Carre de la Legalitat, the studio, raw materials, Mark Goonan, Poppy Cowan, Stuart Medcalf, Wendy Cowan.

Photo: Stuart Medcalf, 2025