Workshop

“At first it seems like a particularly useless act, outlandish and out of the ordinary, but as one discovers that it is a mere manipulation of objects like any other it becomes easy and natural. Looking for barbiturates is like looking for aspirins for a cold and preparing the gas entails the same difficulties as preparing it for a shower.”
 

In 1967 the Chilean artist Cecilia Vicuña founded Tribu No and penned the No Manifiesto, a text that proposed not-doing as an action. Starting in the month of March, we will organize a workshop-visit to Seehearing the Enlightened Failure, a retrospective exhibition by the visual artist, poet, filmmaker and activist. Aimed at groups of secondary school students, this activity will engage with the work and strategies of the Chilean artist in order to think and to act through her work.

A laboratory in which we transform our fears, our longings, our best qualities into a body that lives, dances, dreams and moves.

A chance to let our desires flow freely and to understand ourselves as part of an organism that transcends our individual bodies, to subvert our roles, to create a shared being that lets us question, through sound, visuals and movement, the reality in which we live and how we inhabit it.

We invite groups of secondary school students, who wish to jolly in folly, to take part in this workshop-visit which will explore pieces on view in the exhibition Absurd Humour: A Constellation of Folly in Spain, made up of comic artefacts from, among others, Flavita Banana, Francisco de Goya, Chiquito de la Calzada and Gloria Fuertes.

We seriously believe in the importance of laughing hysterically, from the tips of our toenails, taking us to our wits end and going even further until we come out the other side. Jandemorenawer.

Instructions for absurd actions at home:

_ Day 1: At 7:45 pm applaud a member of your family for 3 minutes (PDF)

_ Day 2: Sing a song to a plant (PDF)

_ Day 3: Write an absurd petition on a big piece of paper. Hang the banner out your window and carry out a silent demonstration march at home (PDF)

_ Day 4: Draw your dreams. Give them to someone close by and ask them to interpret them for you (PDF)

_ Day 5: Only use the vowel ‘a’ during lunch. For instance, “pass ma tha salt plaasa” (PDF)

_ Day 6: Silence the television and try to guess what’s being said (PDF)

_ Day 7: Make a list of the food you have eaten over the last 24 hours and put it in the freezer (PDF)