This is Not a Bay

Abstract

This project deals with the past, present, and future theatricality of the Bay of Gibraltar, in relation to the settlements around its edge – Gibraltar, La Linea, Algeciras – and across the strait to Morocco. These landscapes are read as both backdrop and auditorium; the ports are re-contextualised as the wings and aisles, and the Bay is the stage. The project first establishes comparisons between historical events that have occurred in the Bay alongside other theatrical experiments by artists, architects, and landscapes designers, based on visual and structural similarities. These include both grand events - military sieges, ostentatious construction contributions, as well as the everyday theatricality of fishing-trips, dolphin-tours, migrant patrols, and global trade. It compares the legislation that dictates movement across the Bay to the laws which dictate movement around a stage. The theatrical reading elevates these events as somehow equivalent and worthy of attention, disturbs pre-existing understandings, and recognizes the Bay as a unique theatrical setting. Three sub categories – staging, scripting, viewing – demonstrate precise modes of comparison, each corresponding to a set of spatial conditions, architectural operations, and design objectives. They also coincide to a range of materials, introducing comparisons between drawings and cartographies, scripts and instructions, photography and etchings. By definition the designer of a stage does not limit the acts that can or should take place on it, thus, this contribution is not about designing a play but rather defining the stage. Going beyond the conventional theater space, this contribution introduces a new scale and form of theatrical setting-the global. Theatrum Mundi, or the world as a stage, and in particular, the Bay as a Stage. The theatrical reading is undertaken in order to literally and figuratively draw attention away from the contentious Rock, relegating it to the status of backdrop, and move focus towards the neutral and shared Bay, elevating it to the status of stage. Historically the Rock has been the focus of the theater, in emotional, political, and scenographical terms, with a vocabulary that emphasizes its separation, security, and isolation. Discourse within Gibraltar tends likewise towards isolation and introversion, typified by their antagonistic relationship to the water and their preoccupation with the Rock. By shifting the focus from the Rock towards the Bay, and by providing a new vocabulary for how we speak about the shared Bay the contribution invites regional scale collaborations and initiatives by clarifying and reinforcing the theatricality of the Bay itself.