Workshop in Bedwas, South Wales 28th June 2025 to sign up email solidaritycymru@gmail.com
When the Solidarity Park monument project began, we made a well-thought-out pitch to the local council in Malgrat de Mar, Catalunya. While everything in the pitch happened, the key element was our promise to engage both the international and local community and raise the first €20,000 through crowdfunding to create a monument. This approach was twofold: it made things easier for local politicians, as budget concerns are often top of mind, and it allowed us to demonstrate to the council that we could deliver on community participation.
We raised funds in various ways, but one of the most important methods was by creating mini versions of the Brigadista figures that were planned for the monument. We sold 75 of these miniatures at €150 each in the lead-up to the creation of the Solidarity Park monument. An additional 75 were made in participation workshops by the public..
From the beginning, the Solidarity Park project embraced the philosophy that the figures on the monument would be “All different but all the same.” This phrase was one I often repeated. The idea was to reflect both diversity and solidarity within the monument’s design. Historically, it served as a commentary on the divisions within republican and anti-capitalist movements, but it also had a contemporary message: the need to forge unity today while fighting for everyone’s right to be different.
However, this original concept of having all the figures be different on the monument didn’t materialize. It turned out to be more aesthetically powerful to have them all appear the same
With the mini-Brigadistas, however, we did follow the “All different but all the same” philosophy. The templates for these figures came from the original paper models. It’s fascinating how something that weighed only 5 grams in paper ended up weighing over 3.5 tonnes in stone figures alone for the final monument. I used these paper scaled templates to make the first Mini brigadistas, but after making the first 30 replicas for crowdfunding, I grew creatively bored of making identical versions. That’s when I began experimenting with different types of stone for special editions, and in participation workshops, I taught others to use the templates and encouraged them to make their own unique versions.
One is red and was made especially for my mum. Another was crafted from stone from a mountain near Santa Coloma Hospital, where David Newman was taken after the sinking of the `Ciudad de Barcelona’; this one was made for Mark and Mo Newman in memory of David Newman. There’s even a Brigadista figure swimming to shore. All of these figures are different, but the same. This diversity has created something important—not on the monument itself, but in the collective memory beyond it.
This concept has now connected with another important idea: many of these Brigadiers never made it home. Some of the mini-Brigadistas have been given to the families of Brigadiers, while others have gone to supporters worldwide who share the values of solidarity, internationalism, and freedom. These Brigadiers fought to stop the poisonous rise of fascism, often at the cost of their lives. Many who fought in the Spanish Civil War lie in unmarked graves, and many Brigadistas are among them. In fact, there are even some unidentified bodies in the cemetery in Malgrat de Mar.
We’ve achieved a lot through the creation of the Solidarity Park monument using participatory art methods, including hosting the yearly International Cultural Anti-Fascist Festival. However, the problem of the far-right’s rise isn’t limited to Spain—it’s a global issue. Today, we live in a connected world, which brings its own challenges, but also the opportunity to build internationalism. We need to remember the Brigadistas not just in Spain and Catalunya, where many families and supporters make pilgrimages, but also in their home countries. There are already many plaques and monuments around the world honoring them, but as we uncover more of their history and stories, we should also work to symbolically return the international Brigadistas to their homelands. We may not be able to bring their bodies home, but we can bring back their symbols and ideas.
That’s why, leading up to the 90th anniversary festival of the sinking of the Ciudad de Barcelona in 2027, I want to bring Solidarity Park to other cities and countries with the project “Bring the Brigadistas Home” the idea is to create participation workshops where ‘You’ will make an alabaster mini-Brigadistas crafted from Catalan stone and take it home. A monument to solidarity in everyone’s house, in everyone’s community made by the community. All different, but all the same. Along the way, hopefully we can create some pop-up festival events and use the power of art creation to bring our collective work together. In tandem with this we´d like to get a translated version of the book ‘The Waters of Oblivion’ by Sonia Garangou that’s about the story of the international volunteers from the ship the ‘Ciudad de Barcelona’.
When we started the Solidarity Park project it was very ambitious and some thought it was not likely to succeed but in the end literally thousands participated. There were more than 40,000 volunteer fighters that went to Spain to stop fascism, at least 10,000 did not return. Could we make 10,000 mini-brigadistas? Haha, who knows. What we can do is make a start. In Autumn 2024 I am heading to Hull college of art and design to work with local students. There were 9 volunteers from Hull and we will be making sculptures , and in June 25 I will also be heading to Wales where there were 184 international volunteers… a bigger ask but we can make a start. So I will be organizing the first workshops of ‘Bring Solidarity Home” Project. Do you want to sculpt a solidarity figurine or organize a workshop? Then contact me. Lets see what we can achieve with Participation Art.
By Rob MacDonald
Click Here for a video of the process of how to make a small alabaster figure – in this case a ghost.
Click here to donate to the project
Come to the workshop or organise one solidaritycymru@gmail.com
Outa-Space 