To curate a space can imply giving it direction, but it could also mean to care for the space itself and let it stay open, refraining from giving it direction or purpose. Direction is tempting and how does one justify something that is directionless – and at the same time, the moment something gains purpose whatever it can offer is known and determined.
For this year’s edition of the festival, the curatorial team together with Silvia Bottiroli and Mårten Spångberg introduce an attempt of opening up for a space that due to its lack of direction can be a place for thinking differently, for unpredictable social formations, for letting go and rest, and ultimately from learning from indetermination. Within Espacios intermedios activities and non-activities, practices and durations will emerge, often without being announced or gathered in an instant. It is a place in which one can remain although it constantly changes its features and forms of attention gently avoiding being captured. As Godard could have said, not a justified place, just a place.
This working group is part of a program that opens a reflection on the notion of transmission and critical thinking about practices and knowledges in performing arts today. A four-day program activated in different spaces of the Mercat dels Flors.
Silvia Bottiroli is an independent curator, researcher, organizer and educator in the field of performing arts. She was the artistic director of DAS Theatre in Amsterdam (2018-2021) and of Santarcangelo Festival (2012-2016). She curated the program The May Events for KunstenFestivalDesArts in Brussels and Vooruit in Ghent (2018) and co-curated various artistic, discursive, and educational platforms. Since 2011 she has been teaching Methodology, Critique, and Research in the Arts at Bocconi University in Milan and since 2019 she is co-curating together with Kee Hong Low and a new performative platform for Freespace in Hong Kong.
Mårten Spångberg: Multidisciplinary choreographer and writer living and working in Berlin and Stockholm. His interest concerns dance and choreography in an expanded field, something he has approached through experimental practice in a multiplicity of formats and expressions. He has been active on stage as a performer and creator since 1994, and since 1999 has created his own choreographies, from solos to larger scale works, which have toured internationally. His more recent performances La Substance, but in English, The Internet, Natten and Gerhard Richter, une pièce pour le théâtre has gained extensive international recognition. His current work concerns ecology and post-anthropocene aesthetics.
With Elena Carvajal, Víctor Ramírez, Aimar Morales, Blanca Arias Garcia, Laia Velasco, Marina Ribot Pallicer, Laura Pérez, Xavier Bassas, Virginia Trueba, Paula Kuffer, Laura Llevadot, Idoia Zabaleta, Fernando Pérez, Carolina Campos, Silvia Bottiroli, Mårten Spångberg, Ariadna Rodríguez, Sofía Asencio, Iñaki Álvarez, Bea Fernández, Victoria Pérez Royo, María Jerez, Anne Kerzerho, Víctor Ruiz, Alejandra Pombo and students from the Institut del Teatre.
A working group with invited artists, the Festival team, students from the Institut del Teatre, students from "Post-foundational Aesthetics" Research Group of the University of Philosophy (University of Barcelona), and the learning group with students of Fine Arts and History of Art from the University of Barcelona.
