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We make a collage. We cut things out. We stick them down. We choose. There are always pieces left over—scattered, discarded, excluded, set aside. Pieces that have no place in what we are doing, in the main work.

Fragments of an image that might have been, but never was. TO CUT OUT IS TO REJECT. Even the idea itself can be dismissed. We peer in, we look, and there it is: what seemed to have no use, until a clearing opens up in the woods. Now we know what we can do with it. We want to see what was rejected come back to life! We discover that being rejected or ruled out does not mean being waste; these pieces have simply been waiting to take on new meaning: to make visible the invisible—the hidden work, the hours lived, the thoughts harboured, the traces of what was not seen.

We spend our lives making decisions, choosing a path. Along the way, we meet other travellers and weave a network as we wander and meander through shared experience. But what about the paths we leave behind? Aren’t we defined as much by what we choose as by what we reject? Can we allow ourselves to retrace our steps?

Now that we are looking back, let’s give ourselves another chance. Not just to dream, but to act, and to rethink what we have experienced from a different perspective. We know that choosing means giving something up, and we don’t want to.

We want the margins, the pieces waiting in the wings and our gatherings for discussion. We want to keep walking, but steer clear of straight lines, beginnings and endings. We choose, yes, but knowing that whatever we leave behind today can be reconsidered tomorrow. We come together, rejected or not. We grow stronger by being and growing together. We want to make a beautiful collage where once there were only discarded pieces.

A collage that is always unfinished.

Las Hijas de Yocasta

• The Reading Group is an independent research group initiated by the collective Las Hijas de Yocasta. It has become a regular fixture in the life of Museo CA2M. A place to stop, read, talk and collectively explore other ways of relating to ideas, texts, people and the institution itself.
• Every two weeks, the group comes together to share readings, raise questions, exchange experiences and think about ways of being, doing and building together.
• Participation is free and open to all. No previous knowledge is required—only curiosity, a willingness to share and a desire to be part of a community of learning and research.

PROGRAMME: 22 October / 12 November / 26 November / 10 December

Las Hijas de Yocasta 

Who are we? We are Las Hijas de Yocasta

We call ourselves Las Hijas de Yocasta because we like the name, because we are all daughters, and because Jocasta was Oedipus’s mother (and his wife), who caused him so much grief (and pleasure). We found the perfect excuse for the name in Christiane Olivier’s book Jocasta’s Children and made it our own. It’s ours. Four daughters. We are the resistance of Museo CA2M’s reading groups. But we’ve become more than where we started: we have a voice of our own now. Brought together by our love of talking and talking, and of endlessly turning things over, looking at everything from every possible angle.

Following the enthusiastic response to the spring edition, this autumn Museo CA2M returns with another edition of its long-running introduction to contemporary art, But… Is This Art?, with a new series of morning sessions. Designed as a space for exploring art through curiosity, dialogue and shared experience, the course draws on the spirit of the popular universities.

It is open to anyone who has ever stopped in front of an artwork and found themselves asking precisely that question: “But… is this art?” Over four sessions, we will explore some of the questions, ideas and experiences that can help us engage with contemporary art, discover some of the keys to understanding it and recognise how it is intertwined with our everyday lives.

For this edition, members of the Museo CA2M team will share the artworks, readings, encounters and experiences that have profoundly shaped their relationship with art—those that, at some point, changed the way they saw things, prompted a question or left a lasting impression. Each session will begin from a personal perspective before opening out into broader conversations about the ways in which art accompanies us, challenges us and helps us think about the world.

Over the years, the course has fostered a community around the museum, bringing together people from a wide range of backgrounds and with diverse interests who find here a space to think together. Each gathering thus becomes an open conversation in which questions circulate, experiences intersect and every voice brings a unique perspective. Taking part in the course means becoming part of this living space, where we learn from artworks and ideas, as well as by listening to one another.

The sessions will combine presentations of materials and ideas with opportunities for group discussion, encouraging an approach to contemporary art based on exchange, reflection and the collective construction of meaning.

A course for discovering art through the questions that move us, sharing ways of seeing, and together, continuing to build a learning community around the museum.

PROGRAMME:

• 20 October: Vanessa Pollán. Head of Communications, Museo CA2M
• 27 October: Estrella Serrano. Head of Education and Public Activities, Museo CA2M
• 3 November: Gema Bayón, Ignacio Macua, María Teresa Bogajo. Exhibitions and Publications Department, Museo CA2M
• 10 November: Ana Ballesteros. Deputy Director, Museo CA2M

Where does a drawing begin and where does it end? Is it a line on paper or a way of thinking? A gesture of the body? A conversation? A way of being together?

Nadia Barkate and Fátima Moreno’s exhibition The List invites us to approach drawing as a living, undisciplined and open territory. A place where images do not always follow a predetermined plan, where bodies are transformed, stories intermingle and forms seem to emerge simultaneously from memory, imagination and desire.

This tour and workshop invites groups to explore the exhibition through observation, conversation and collective experimentation. We will look closely at the works, asking ourselves not only what they tell us, but also what lies beyond what they appear to be saying. We will explore drawing as gesture and thought in motion, as writing, imprint, play and a possibility for encounter.

Together, we will develop practices that allow us to listen to the unexpected, activate the imagination and discover what happens when drawing ceases to be merely a form of representation and becomes a shared action.

Because sometimes a drawing is not something we make, but something that happens.

We invited the artist Eva Garrido to help us develop this project. Eva is one of those artists capable of opening up spaces where imagination, listening and collective experience become tools for looking through a different lens. Her work moves between drawing, performance, writing and the body, exploring processes of collaborative creation in which what matters is not only the outcome, but everything that happens as we create together.

We think this workshop will be a wonderful adventure for those who visit us, and also for ourselves. A space to imagine together, allow ourselves to be surprised and continue creating.

We look forward to seeing you.