Plaça d’Isidre Nonell

On my very last day in Barcelona, I decided to pay a visit to Plaça d’Isidre Nonell, the square home to El Món Neix en Cada Besada. This mural, which translates to The World Begins With Every Kiss, was designed by Joan Fontcuberta and is an iconic piece of Barcelona street art. It was a destination I had been eager to visit from the time of my arrival, yet regrettably, had never made the time for. Viewing it in real life blew me away, because what I had believed to be graffiti was actually a mosaic made up of thousands of tiny ceramic tiles, each one meticulously printed with a photo of a person, a place, a moment, or an event representing an expression of freedom. Installed in 2014 as part of Barcelona’s Tricentenary celebrations commemorating the fall of Barcelona during The War of The Spanish Succession, the mural fills me with faith in humans’ ability to come together and persevere through hardships. A plaque next to the mosaic quotes Oliver Holmes: “The sound of a kiss is not as loud as that of a cannon, but it’s echo lasts a great deal longer”.

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