“Panorama móvil” is a research project developed in collaboration with the Colectivo Ojo Pértico (local Occupational Center of La Puebla de Cazalla), and is part of an extensive art program for people with intellectual disabilities, funded by the City Council of La Puebla de Cazalla and coordinated by Alegría y Piñero since 2014.

The panorama móvil of the Colectivo Ojo Pértico is inspired by the 19th-century pre-cinematic spectacle Great Panorama of the Missisipi by John Banvard.

Most research on 19th-century panoramas focuses on circular panoramas: large architectural constructions that remained stationary in a city and offered viewers the opportunity to see an enormous painting that provided a 360º view of the capital. Due to their scale and immersive nature, the viewer—placed at the center—could contemplate a city from a new dimension. Panoramas móviles, however, were itinerant. They carried their stories from city to city, including small towns and rural areas. These moving panoramas consisted of a long roll of fabric that, as it was unrolled, passed in front of the viewer, offering a front-row seat to scenes of travel, adventure, or major historical events. While the large circular panoramas were usually painted by academically trained artists, the panoramas móviles were often painted by self-taught individuals, and were considered examples of naïve or folk art. Few examples remain today because they were used until they almost disappeared, worn out and torn into pieces. This idea of wearing out a painting through repeated use is yet another expression of the medium’s physicality. The panorama móvil is conceived as a precursor to multimedia, as in addition to the visualization of the painting, the spectacle was conceived as a total artwork that combined theatrical and dance scenes with narrations, shadow plays, or dioramas.

The panorama móvil, like most pre-cinema spectacles, was eventually relegated to oblivion in the race toward more effective and realistic forms of entertainment, with cinema crowned as the ultimate achievement. This project seeks to revisit this forgotten spectacle, not through pre-cinematic nostalgia, but by understanding it as a medium that goes beyond cinema, generating its own unique and distinctive languages. The device, its structure, and its large painted scroll have an object-like, almost sculptural character.

The panorama móvil possesses a plastic, physical, and theatrical presence. It places drawing and painting at the center and creates a new way of seeing the image, one imbued with time and movement. In the simplicity of this device—in the directness and tangibility of its effect—it becomes easier to understand our relationship with the image than through current audiovisual media. Paradoxically, knowing how the effect is produced does not negate our ability to be deceived; rather, it makes us cling even more strongly to fantasy.