From 1 to 11 December 2020, from 5 to 8pm

Matadero Estudios Críticos (M.E.C.) is a programme of independent learning transversally related to research groups that work at Matadero Madrid. Developed through different theoretical and practical modules and courses, its primary objective is to generate common workspaces in which to raise and address issues that help us to critically question our own contemporaneity through research and artistic practices.

For, Through, With / Cultural and Childhood Policies is a proposal from Intermediae for Matadero Estudios Críticos. It is concerned with the place occupied by childhood in cultural spaces and projects, and its purpose is to promote channels of active and collaborative participation. Curated by hablarenarte, the seminar develops different approaches to the role of childhood in relation to cultural production.

It consists of a round table and a workshop, both curated by hablarenarte within the framework of the European project Cultural Creative Spaces and Cities (CCSC), and a series of Open Conversations promoted by La Parcería. Infancia y Familia (La Parcería Childhood and Family).

The seminar as a whole is connected to a work cycle through which we at Intermediae have explicitly raised questions about childhood, and its purpose is to take further steps to continue with this line of research. Considering the fact that children are an audience, and that childhood is also a sensitivity, may help to guide us when developing artistic projects in alternative ways.

Programme:

Opening session

On how to generate non-adult-centred participation spaces in art institutions
Wednesday 2 December from 5 to 8pm at Intermediae

The presence and essence of childhood have historically been key when it comes to rethinking the cultural model and the model of institutional cultural spaces. This interest has been present throughout Intermediae’s 12 years of practice, in projects like Ganarse la Vida (Earning a Living) (C.A.S.I.T.A, 2008) or Hybrid Playground (Diego Díaz and Clara Boj, 2008), Aion Pais (Ludotek, 2010), or Gamestart (Arsgames, 2012). Los Madriles Ÿ Edición Especial Infancia (The Madrids. Special Childhood Edition) (Vivero de Iniciativas Ciudadanas, FRAVM, Lys Villalba, Isabel Ochoa and Zuloark, 2018) and La Madroñera (The Strawberry Tree Girl) (Pandora Mirabilia, Parcería Infancia y Familia, 2019). More recently, Modelos para una Ciudad donde Caben las Niñas y los Niños (Models for a City with Room for Boys and Girls) was a cycle of artistic-architectural interventions by artists Iza Rutkowska, Aberrant Architecture and Leonor Serrano Rivas, who were invited on this occasion to work on the intersection between play, childhood, upbringing and the city.

At this round table, we will have the chance, among other things, to learn and debate about the role of children’s councils in cultural institutions, and to delve into the pertinence of including and the need to include certain keys that are revealed and represented by childhood and by a child’s body, confronting us with certain paradoxes and casting light on numerous challenges for our participative cultural model.

With the participation of artist Mikhail Karikis, Rosa Ferré (Artistic Director of Matadero Madrid), Gisel Noè (Director of Mataró Art Contemporani), Inez Veldam (Educator at the Boijmans Museum of Rotterdam) and Lucía Zandigiacomi (Architect, member of Raons Publiques, a participation and urbanism cooperative), among others. Moderator: Emma Brasó from hablarenarte.

The audience capacity for this activity is limited. To attend the event in person, please fill out this form and once the maximum capacity has been reached, we will send you a link so you can watch it online. You can sign up until 1 December 2020.

A gathering for artists, managers, educators, curators, researchers and any other person interested in working with childhood from a mutual learning perspective. The round table will be in Spanish and English with simultaneous translation by streaming.

Amor Feroz (Ferocious Love)
Workshop with Mikhail Karikis

1 - 4 December 2020 from 5 to 8 pm at Intermediae

Digital, visual, global and technological natives, mediated by social networks and able to produce and share content that represents them and the world around them. How do creative professionals, artistic organisations and institutions connect with the Z and Alpha generations? How do we start to engage with how they think and talk about the world they live in, dominated by adults, their structures and dramatic transformations? What cultures do children, teenagers and young people choose to immerse themselves in and to express themselves? What cultures do they produce?

Focusing on specific examples of art projects created for children, teenagers and young adults through participative and socially integrated methodologies, the objective of this workshop with artist Mikhail Karikis is to provide wherewithal, to share practical experiences, to provide theoretical guidelines, and to activate critical thinking with participants on how to produce art projects that involve younger people.

Based on exercises and other group activities, we will reflect on class, race and the socioeconomic contexts in which the examined art projects have been created.

The topics we will work on have to do with acoustic ecology, techno-dystopic legacies and childhood activism, climate anxiety, eco-conflict and environmental degradation, rebellious adolescence, juvenile aspirations, spatial justice, the sound agency and the activist imaginary, the subculture of juvenile music and political love.

Mikhail Karikis is a Greek / British artist based in London and Lisbon. His work with moving images, sound, performance art and other media has been exhibited at major international contemporary art biennials, museums and film festivals. Through collaborations with individuals and/or communities located beyond contemporary art circles and (in recent years) with children, teenagers, young adults, and people with disabilities, Karikis develops socially integrated projects that promote an activist imaginary and awaken the potential to imagine possible desired futures of self-determination and potency. Focusing on listening as an artistic strategy and on issues of social and environmental justice, his projects highlight alternative forms of human action and solidarity, while at the same time thriving on critical attention, dignity and tenderness.

If you are interested and would like to participate, please fill out this form.
Call open until 23 November 2020
(Free in-person activity with a maximum capacity of 20 people).

The workshop is for artists, managers, educators, curators, researchers and any other person interested in working with childhood from a mutual learning perspective. Participants will be selected on the basis of the information provided by the applicants themselves, especially with regard to their interest in working with childhood from inclusive, collaborative and experimental perspectives.

The workshop will be in English. During the sessions, a member of the hablarenarte team will be on hand to resolve any doubts that may arise, including language issues, if necessary.

Desazones, Rupturas y Transpiraciones (Uneasiness, Ruptures and Transpirations). A (dis)tale of maternities from creative practices.
Open conversations, with Carolina Bustamante and Camena Camacho

9 - 11 December 2020 from 6 to 8 pm at Intermediae
(Free in-person activity with a limited capacity, call open from 4 December 2020).

Parcería Infancia y Familia invite two artists, activists and researchers, Andrea Francke and Gabriela Wiener (to be confirmed), to share the results of their research into and concerns about the topic of maternity and upbringing processes from the perspective of creative practices and their connection with the structural framework of institutional and social relationships that support or abandon said processes.

Andrea Francke: From 9 to 11 December, from 6 to 8pm (date to be confirmed)

Andrea Francke is a Peruvian artist based in London. She writes, teaches and develops work of artistic-social practice. Her projects focus on developing infrastructures. Most of her work is connected with other institutions and curators, with whom she produces the visible aspect of her work. Maternity, activism, art and caregiving are some of the keywords of her practice as a researcher.

Gabriela Wiener: 10 and 11 December, from 6 to 8pm (date to be confirmed)

Gabriela Wiener is a Peruvian writer and journalist who belongs to the group of new Latin American chroniclers. Her texts have appeared in various anthologies (Peruvian Selection 2015, Estruendomudo; Mejor que Ficción (Better than Fiction). Crónicas Ejemplares (Exemplary Chronicles), Anagrama; Solo Cuento (I Just Say), UNAM; Antología de la Crónica Latinoamericana Actual (Anthology of current Latin American Chronicles), Alfaguara; Novísima Relación (A Brand-new Relationship), IFC; Matar en Barcelona (Killing in Barcelona), Alpha Decay; Mujeres que Viajan Solas (Women who Travel Alone), El Mercurio (Mercury), and some of her chronicles have been translated into English, Italian and French.