A walk to El Molinillo

This afternoon, I walked to the barrio of El Molinillo, a part of the Old Town I visited once before, but reached it from a different direction. This time I went up Calle Ollerias, found the Parish Church of Santa Cruz & St Philip Neri, wrapped around by some narrow streets. I stopped to take a photo of the west facade, and had a sense of deja-vu. No matter where I stood in the little plaza in front of the church, I was too close to capture the whole. Then I remember having had the same problem when I was here last summer. When I checked my photo archive, the reason was obvious. I'd used the same camera! If I'd taken my Sony HX300 with me I'd have got a different result, as this has a wider angle lens. So, I'll have to try again another day.

A few hundred metres away from the church is the Convento de la Merced, dating from the late 19th century. The Hermanas Mercedarias de la Caridad, an institute for the religious life was founded in Malaga in 1878, its ministry is 'works of mercy'. The exterior of the church has acquired a striking coat of dark red paint. It wasn't open to visit but seems to be still in use. The ancilliary buildings of the convent have been taken over by the Ajuntamiento and converted into an art gallery with its own built in workshop cum studio for painters. It's dedicated to the eminient Malaguenian expressionista Jorge Rando, born in 1941 and still at work. He recently partnered with a German artist to mount a special art-work to commemorate the 500th anniversary of the Lutheran Reformation, in Hamburg.

Expressionist artists are few and far between in Spain. Expressionism is a movement of modern art, which explores through form and colour the inner experience of big picture concepts, like suffering, conflict, hope, solidarity, nature, cosmos, to name but a few. Imagery used is suggestive, and mostly abstract, making use of colour to convey feeling. His work was very well presented in various rooms and around a cloister area, with quotations from the artist and commentators relating to the works. It was most intriguing. I'd like to return and spend a longer, more reflective time there.

Walking on a few hundred metres further, I came to the Mercado de Salamanca. It's a food market hemmed in by drab apartment blocks and a through road. It looks like it could do with a coat of paint or at least a good wash. Nevertheless, it is an extraordinary edifice, a single space hall, built in the Moorish Mudejar style, in red, green and white, decorated with patterned friezes of tiles. It is situated quite near the banks of the rio Guadalmedina, and La Rosaleda, Malaga's football stadium. It was about a kilometre's walk from there back to the Alameda, and the way back to La Malagueta via the port.

Just where two grand classical columns announce the main entrance to the port's administrative hub and passenger entrance to the various ferry terminals, I found the third of Elena Laverón's sculptures loaned to the city, following last year's exhibition in the Palmeria de las Sorpresas. Unlike the others which are bronzes, this one is cast or moulded from particles of crushed stone, by what process, I do not know. I'm not sure it's concrete of some kind, unless it's been highly polished to give it a smooth surface. This was how I knew it was one of hers, as I remembered its texture, plus the fact that it was one of very few sculptures which were not in bronze. My photo album of last summer confirmed it.

A striking difference

A mild day, with clouds and sunshine, good for walking, and after a housekeeping morning, I did a circuit of the port and the Old Town, and simply enjoyed being back in this wonderful city, with so much happening to notice.

The quayside Palmeria de Sorpresas seems strangely empty now last summer's exhibition of thirty odd life size bronze sculptures by Elena Laverón under the banner Caminantes en el Puerto has moved on. They attracted a great deal of positive attention from passers-by who now can only walk, and pause less often to take pictures with the life sized oeuvres. Back last summer, I walked that route several times a week. Their absence has given me a far better idea of both the social impact and the value of good public art. How will the cultural commissars of the Ajuntamiento de Málaga follow on from this, I wonder?

International Women's Day is being celebrated today, I don't know about elsewhere, but here it's accompanied by advocating a 'Huelga Feminista' - women on strike, refusing to go shopping, and conform to the common stereotype.

It made me smile, then laugh out loud. Listening to the early news, we were reminded of the many outstanding achievements of women in our time, and how far from genuinely equal opportunity we still are, but, as ever in the mass media, it was all talk within the media bubble about the educated privileged elites of society.

Women worldwide still take most responsibility for obtaining everyday food provisions, and home making. Shopping in all its forms, whether for basic essentials or for rare luxuries is part of a woman's daily routine. The notion of a shopping strike is quixotic, whimsically comic, but makes the point about something all too easily taken for granted, a systemic part of existing inequality. Thank heavens for a little anarchic provocation! But can we think of what a world would look like where all women and men have, make use of equal opportunities, while at the same time valuing the different approaches and priorities women and men have in life? This isn't impossible, but essential to my mind. In every generations, women and men have so much to learn from each other about how to address the issues threatening our very existence today.

Unusual port visitor

With nothing planned to do today, I started work on next Sunday's sermon, wrote a few emails and did domestic chores until well into the afternoon. When I finally set my mind on walking over to El Corte Ingles, I noticed from the end of the street the five masts of a big sailing ship above the trees along the sea front, so climbed the steep path up the Gibralfaro for a better view and a photograph. It's a luxury cruise liner which supplements its ship's engines with sails when weather permits, the largest of a series built in France for Club Med in the late 1980s, but now run by Windstar Cruises.

I then continued walking to El Corte Ingles, through the back streets of the Old Town. Much of this is now quite familiar from spending time here last autumn. It takes under half an hour on foot to reach here from the apartment, which is what Clare wanted me to find out.

I visited the store's electronic gadget department, and was mildly disappointed to see very little that was different from what's on offer in John Lewis and PC World back home. Sometimes in the past I've seen new products brought to market in Spain well before the UK, and things brought to market there which are never seen in a British High Street. Demand for new domestic computers, whether desktop or portable, has levelled off in recent years with the rise of tablets and smartphones, and with the latest arrival of voice activated devices delivering information services into the home. It's no something which interests me much. 

No matter how clever it all is, it's potentially intrusive, and may prevent users from making an effort to find out things for themselves rather than wait for the helpful suggestion from a worktop device. I feel the same about SatNavs too. I'd rather learn for myself how to find my way around a place or around a map, by observation, and only use a location sensing device in support, if needed.

The return trip took me to the Palmeria de las Sorpresas quay to inspect the ship I'd seen from afar. It's the MVY Wind Surf, with room for over 300 passengers in spacious accommodation. There are cruise ships which take 5-10 times that number of passengers, catering for the mass market with high standards, in not so much private space, and these are extremely popular for those who cannot afford premium prices. These ships are all interesting from an architectural perspective, but for my own needs, I happy with river cruising on an altogether much smaller scale.

While I was there, I took photographs of the fourteen 'Caminantes en el Puerto' sculptures by Elena Laverón on display as part of the 200th anniversary celebrations for La Farola, now destined to become a maritime museum, walking past them in both directions. The results are here.

It's unlikely I'll be about when Wind Surf leaves harbour, or that I'll see it with its sails unfurled. That would just be too lucky on my part.