Monday Blues: Alcon Blues

Modraszek Kolektyw photo

"A landscape is not a thing - a city is not a business" reads the slogan of the Krakow [Poland] social and artistic Alcon Blue Collective… "We operate without institutional support, our budget is nil, we have cardboard wings and the burning need to make ourselves heard on the topic of Zakrzowek."

Zakrzowek is a green space near the city center of Krakow. The space contains a reservoir, where once there was an open-pit mine, surrounded by meadows. The park-like Zakrzowek is home to the endangered Alcon Blue butterfly. In 2011 Zakrzowek was fence off, the public shut out, the future of the Alcon Blue put on notice by a developer who bought the land to with the intention of constructing a new housing project. The Alcon Blue Collective grew out of, and in response to, the desire to keep the space public, to maintain it as habitat for the butterfly. Read more about the Alcon Blue Collective and their artistic mission here.

Blue: A color, a mood or emotion, a genre of music. Tune in each Monday for another installment of the Blues, with a cycling twist.