Blockhaus-Blocblaus. Històries paral·leles [Marsella], 1988

The title refers to two interventions done in Marseille in 1988. While Blockhaus, a German term that refers to a small defensive military structure, is a sort of installation that was carried out at Le Cap Pinède, Blocblaus, an invented term, was presented at the Centre de la Vieille-Charité. Abad revives European memory, in this case through an image of the sea, conceived as witness to flight and exile, both in the present and in the 1940s, with the exodus brought on by the rise of European fascism. In occupied France, Marseille was an exit point for many German Jews fleeing from Europe, as well as for Spanish refugees. Abad has carried out a long-term project on this historical moment, brought together under the term block W.B., in reference to Walter Benjamin, the German-Jewish thinker who committed suicide in Portbou when trying to escape from the Gestapo.