Activity

In an open dialogue on the exhibition The Origin of Forms, the artist Cristina Garrido and the exhibition curator Tania Pardo will discuss the factors that will determine the survival of the art system.

Thursday 26 October at 19:00

Meeting with Cristina Garrido and Tania Pardo, an open dialogue on The Origin of Forms

Wednesday 22 November at 19:00

Talk on the exhibition The Origin of Forms by Cristina Garrido with

Estrella de Diego. Essayist, Professor at the Complutense University of Madrid and full member of the San Fernando Academy of Fine Arts in Madrid. 

Montserrat Moliner. Artist and manager of cultural projects.

Juan de Andrés Arias. Artist and researcher. 

Wednesday 13 December at 19:00

Talk on the exhibition The Origin of Forms by Cristina Garrido with

Selina Blasco. Professor at the UCM’s Department of Art History at the Faculty of Fine Arts. 

Daniel Gasol. Cultural worker. 

Concepción Elorza. Researcher at the University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU

Directed by Inés Plasencia, Noemí de Haro and Patricia Mayayo.

The Conference on the Study of The Image is an event dedicated to collective reflection on the theory, practice, semantic openings and contemporary demarcations of visual cultures. It includes a forum for debate, seminar and workshops, as well as a public call for research projects (details below).

This conference is an encounter of artistic, theoretical and activist perspectives on mental health and attempts to address these intersections through specific collaborative artistic practices as well as public participation. Even before the Covid-19 pandemic unleashed a wave of depression and anxiety-related disorders, the question of its impact on particular, very specific communities, as well as critiques of certain medical positions related to their diagnosis and treatment, have increasingly come into the spotlight, overwhelming traditional spaces of legitimisation.

Mental health and its connection to neurodivergence are part of a dialogue that is often tense when it comes to treatment methods and curative principles, as well as with denial strategies used against collective causes: particularly critical areas, such as grassroots activist movements and artistic practice, defend personified positions and denounce the violence and the stigmatisation of a great deal of psychiatric practice.

At the same time, “over-diagnosis” is prone to critique, among other things, because it excludes the most socially marginalised groups, making them invisible. Artistic and activist practices propose definitions and approaches to mental health that focus on more intimate, affective aspects of mental health, as well as the vindication of visions read as neurodivergent and the importance of networks for overcoming collective discomfort.

These spaces and feelings built around the idea of community self-management of mental health find that creating is not only a tool for healing, but also for protest. The conference, directed by Inés Plasencia, Noemí de Haro and Patricia Mayayo, will include talks, participatory workshops, dialogues between artists, presentations of projects and communications selected through open calls, as well as a screening and subsequent conversation with the director.

UAM Coordination: Mónica Salcedo Calvo. This conference is part of the project The audiences of contemporary art and visual culture in Spain. new forms of collective artistic experience since the 1960s (PID2019-105800GB-I00, Agencia Estatal de Investigación). Participants in the programme include: Fernando Balius, Clara López (Mesa Camilla), Ana CSC, María Ruido, Inés Molina, Alicia Utiyama, David Crespo, Sasha Warren, Costa Badía, Silvia Maestre Limiñana, Jesús Etxart, Gemma B. Palacios, Rebecca Tolosa, Toxic Lesbian, Irene García Molina, Rafael Sánchez-Mateos, Fátima Masoud.

INFORMATION NOTE:

• Registration is required in order to attend the conference.
• You can attend individual sessions, but priority will be given to registered participants
• To attend the workshops, you must register for all the conferences. Each workshop lasts 2 mornings. It is only possible to register for one.
• We ask that those who have registered be punctual. If, ten minutes after the start of the first afternoon session, there are empty seats, these may be taken by anyone who has not registered until all the seats are filled.
• Certificates of attendance will be issued for those who attend 80% of the sessions.
•  

PROGRAMME

Thursday 16 November.

11:00-14:00 Workshop: From painting mandalas to stories that tell stories. Part 1. Conversations on madness and collective meaning Fernando Balius*

11:00-14:00 Podcast workshop. Pain as a gift: strategies and rituals for mental health care. Part 1. Clara Lopez (Night Table)*

16:30 Start and presentation of the programme.

16:45 A crazy opening conference. Ana CSC (Locus)

17:30 Debate

18:00-18:15 Break

18:15-20:00 Presentation of projects. Session 1. The world as diagnosis.

• It’s not you, it’s ableism. Costa Badía.
• Clinical Report: F84.1. Silvia Maestre Limiñana.
• “DropExpander” (psycho-magnetic embodiment of interferon on basic biological mechanisms). Jesús Etxart.

Friday 17 November.

11:00-14:00 Workshop: From painting mandalas to stories that tell stories. Part 2. Conversations on madness and collective meaning Fernando Balius.

11:00-14:00 Podcast workshop: Pain as a gift: strategies and rituals for mental health care. Part 2. Clara López (Bedside Table).

15:30-17:15 Presentation of projects. Session 2. The shores of art

•  “What to cure?” Poetry behind the antiseptic tunnel in Anne Sexton, Unica Zürn and Alejandra Pizarnik. Gema B. Palacios
• Sanctity and neurodivergence: minor artistic practices between the abject and the sacred. Rafael Sánchez-Mateos
• Art brut, bruta tú 100mg. Fatima Masoud.

17:15 Break

17:30-19:15 Presentation of projects. Session 3. Own repair

• (Im)possible images. Rebecca Tolosa.
• Tales that are Never Told and In the Wind. Toxic Lesbian.
• Stories of autistic mothers. Research, dissemination, action. Irene García Molina.

19:15 Break

Saturday 18 November

11:00-12:00 Critical positions from the perspective of artistic practice. Conversation with David Crespo and Alicia Utiyama

12:00 Debate

12:15 Break

12:30 The workshop of the mad. Talk by Sasha Warren

13:15-14:00 Debate

14:00-16:00 Lunch break.

16:00 Public presentation of the workshop: From painting mandalas to stories that tell stories. Conversations on madness and collective meaning Fernando Balius.

17:00 Public presentation of the podcast workshop: Pain as a gift: strategies and rituals for mental health care. Clara López (Night Table)

18:00 Closing speech at the end of the conference.

18:15 Screening. State of discomfort. María Ruido.

19:15-20:00 Debate with María Ruido.

A Mouthful of Tongues is a performance by the artist Stina Fors that will be performed at the CA2M Museum as part of the Un coro Amateur voice-creation workshop.

It is a performance that explores experimental vocal techniques and the power of communication via the mouth. Turning the mouth into a theatre, she uses techniques such as grunting, ventriloquism, tongue exercises and dinosaur calls, among others.

These techniques create a journey where multiple bodies and sounds meet in dissociated relationships. The body’s connection to its voice and sound is disrupted, leading to confusion and overlapping forms of communication. This work celebrates the mouth as a powerful channel for shaping, expressing, distorting, destroying and resurrecting communication. Audiences will experience fragmented stories, thoughts and emotions from other places to create surreal landscapes that sound familiar but are, at their core, alien.

Stina Fors, born 1989 in Gothenburg, is a choreographer, performer, drummer and vocalist. She studied choreography and performance at SNDO (School for New Dance Development) in Amsterdam. Stina’s passion for sound and voice led her to create a repertoire of solo performances, including her one-woman-punk-band: Stina Force. Her live performances often incorporate experimentation and improvisation as creative strategies. Stina is currently based in Vienna.

With support from Fabra i Coats: Centre d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona.

‘Maybe you can show us that TikTok that you saved ages ago that you thought was so funny/curious/interesting. Maybe we’ll want to stroll, rest, re-do.

I think we'll be a chaotic but creative group. Or maybe we'll get bored, but that's not bad either, right? We’ll visit friends, artists... people who’ll tell us their latest secret and, together, we’ll do something with it.’

Nails and Tacks is an activity aimed at young people aged 13 to 21, where they can discover new creating methods related to contemporary creation. It’s an open, collective space in which to investigate artistic strategies based on the principles of do-it-yourself and self-publishing.

On Fridays and weekends, we will hold workshops and meetings with artists, exploring our personal universes and seeking new ways to observe everyday life from an artistic perspective. You can sign up for a one-off session or for our ongoing sessions,  all of which will be different. Over the next few months, we would love to build a space in which to create, think and imagine together.

Quiosco Clandestino are Angie de la Lama and Leo D'Elio. As a collective, it was born in 2020 in the post-pandemic context from a reflection on the cultural circuits in which both organisers were part of. It was born as an organisation that supports artists or people interested in artistic creation, as well as creating their own projects related to self-publishing.

Angie de la Lama is an artist and designer from Seville based in Madrid. Her work moves between comics, illustration and experimental cinema. She also works as a cultural manager and, within this field, has created Skisomic fest, the first fanzine festival in Seville, and has set up the association Quiosco clandestino de promoción cultural. Angie combines her work as an artist and manager with the development of educational projects for different public and private institutions.

Leo D'Elio is an artist and cultural manager from Madrid. His practice revolves around the personal, the everyday, the public space and practices related to self-publishing such as fanzines, comics and sound experimentation. He is a staunch defender of amateurism and doing it 'badly'. He developed in his youth in the youth group of the 'sub21' museum following 'Duchamp & Sons' at the Whitechapel Gallery in London until he created with Angie in 2020 Quiosco Clandestino and Yina + Eol.