Polígono Project: the musical revival of the Pla de Mallorca

PalmThe gradual disappearance of Mallorca's music scene—made even more evident by the closure of many of the venues that comprised it just a decade ago, but which has many other factors and consequences—is a reality that musicians and audiences seemed to have grown accustomed to living with. However, in recent years, a number of associations and organizations have emerged seeking to revitalize it, such as Isla Sonora (Porreres), Neura (Manacor), and Desánimo de Lucro (Vilafranca), among others, as well as Crui (Palma) and the Mocuco Association (Colonia de San Pedro). After four months of meetings and discussions, they have all come together with a common goal: to provide the Pla de Mallorca with a community space for musical creation, an initiative known as the Polígono Project.

The idea is to launch a concert hall with a stable, self-managed cultural program, and—say its leaders—"let whoever pays for it." City councils, the Commonwealth, the Mallorca Council, and the Balearic Islands Government spend a lot of money on open-air dances, festival promotion, theaters, auditoriums, paddle tennis courts, soccer fields, and sports halls. "It's not going to reach a lot of people," they assert. "Proyecto Polígono aims to be the hub for a historic attraction of the scene." underground from Mallorca," they say.

Sound Factory as a reference

Thus, the proposal is to carry it out on one of the six plots managed by the Porreres City Council, five of them measuring 900 square meters and one measuring 2,000, on the Sa Creu land, where the municipality's new industrial estate has been built. "The location in an area far from the town center, as is usual for similar venues, facilitates implementation, conciliation, integration into the environment, and coexistence," argue those responsible for the initiative, who mention references such as the ATV (in Sarrià de Ter), La Capsa (a cultural center in El Prat de Llobregat), and La Clau (S).

However, the most exemplary and paradigmatic case of all is even closer: the Sound Factory, operating since 1997 in Santa Maria del Camí, where the City Council ceded management of part of the Casas de Son Llaüt to the association of the same name, which initially wanted to start one. Almost thirty years after the transfer, La Factoria has a social venue with year-round musical programming, a rehearsal space, a music school, and several associated groups, such as the Grollers de Sa Factoria and the Demonios de Factoria de Son. "It's a success story in the Balearic Islands, and we've already been in touch, as we have with similar projects in other territories," say those responsible for Projecte Polígon.

The next step in this path, they affirm, is to create a dialogue table with the institutions and groups involved. "We are well aware of how municipal policies and cultural subsidies work in Mallorca. In our territory, cultural activities are expensive, leisure activities are addictive, and politics are slow," they assert, although they trust that the public support, which they are only just beginning to gather, will serve as a boost to the project.

In this regard, they have launched a website (www.poligon.illasonora.cat) from which they intend to promote the collection of signatures and also potential collaborators, as they ask for citizen involvement to promote a project that, they argue, benefits the entire island's society. "It should not only serve existing groups, but should also enable the creation of new groups and should be able to be used, for example, by young musicians who are learning an instrument and want to rehearse. These spaces are very necessary to democratize access to culture. In the same way that the change of grass in fields questioned from now on is not questioned," they summarize.

A change in the cultural model

Behind this new citizen initiative, in any case, are around fifty people who function as a single, collective, and transversal entity, although they come from diverse groups, such as Illa Sonora, a platform for the preservation and dissemination of Mallorca's musical heritage created in 2020, which has recorded the release of more than 300 albums since then. They consider this figure very significant—close to 300 albums in five years—although they consider it contrasts with the limitations of the island's music scene.

"The current panorama is paradoxical," say those responsible for Proyecto Polígono, "because there has been an increase in musical production, but at the same time there is a lack of generational prominence, of spaces to play and of a stable cultural scene. The bars that fifteen years ago programmed concerts either no longer exist or have stopped doing so. DJs or cover bands, which have ended up taking the place of emerging groups of their own music. We have nothing against that, everyone can dance what they want, but we claim that there are many people who would like to do things and can't because there are no spaces in which to do it."

Among the members of Proyecto Polígono, there are also those responsible for various cultural entities born between 2019 and 2023. "The post-covid pandemic created a need to meet again and opened a gap of possibilities where; for a few months, some of us dreamed of the possibilities of this new space in Porreres to make it a reality.