actividades.ca2m@madrid.org

Madrid has a long and little-known Islamic legacy which is intertwined with the city’s history in a way that challenges the political and media discourses that present Islam and Muslims as unwanted, recent foreign arrivals. Madrid was founded in the eleventh century with the mixed name of Maŷrit and is the only current European capital with Islamic roots.

Its first history was written in Arabic, as were the names of its first known inhabitants. For 220 years, Madrid belonged to the broad Arab-Islamic geographic and cultural space that extended from the Duero River to the Sahara Desert, from the Atlantic Ocean to the Indus River. After being conquered and incorporated to the Kingdom of Castile in the late eleventh century, Madrid still had an Islamic presence for 500 more years through its Mudejar, Morisco and slave minorities.

This historical legacy is barely known because the history of Madrid has been recounted in light of its status as the urbs regia, the seat and symbolic embodiment of a power that has been presented as essential and exclusively Catholic and European, which has consequently tended to erase the material and symbolic traces of a past that was considered unsuitable. However, unexpected, subtle phantasmagorias of this past, both tangible and intangible, still exist in Madrid today and even inhabit the icons of Madrid’s identity.

This activity suggests a tour around different spaces of memory to engage in a reflection on the history and memory of Madrid in relation to concepts like identity, alterity, mestizaje and diversity.

Wednesday 19 June. 6-8 pm. Free activity with advance registration. Capacity: 25 people.

Daniel Gil-Benumeya, 1970. He was raised between Rabat and Madrid in a family associated with the imagined and cross-border geography of southern Spain. His academic training is in the field of Arab and Islamic Studies, and outside the academy he was trained in the neighbourhood community of Lavapiés and other areas of Madrid. He is currently a professor in the Department of Linguistics and Oriental Studies at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid and scientific coordinator of the Centro de Estudios de Madrid Islámico (CEMI), which is affiliated with the Fundación de Cultura Islámica (FUNCI). His main line of research involves a range of issues associated with the past and present of Islam and populations considered Muslim in Europe. He specifically examines the processes of constructing identity and alterity and the role played by social representations of history and memory in this construction.

María Us is a Guatemalan activist who was a guerilla member during Guatemala’s armed internal conflict between 1960 and 1996.

As the outcome of the partnership between her and the artist Ana Gallardo, we are presenting a play in the form of a biographical act which tells the story of a forest that is both the memory of land struggles and the community’s means of sustenance, in an attempt to disinhibit and publicise the resistance of several generations of female bodies violated by their family members and fellow political activists, too.

MARÍA US

I am a woman with K'iche' roots. I speak my native language. Ever since I remember, I’ve worked the land a lot. I went to primary school in my community. What I remember from primary school: most of the teachers were Latino and they would hit and punish us over anything. And they forced us to study or speak Spanish. I liked to play and run, and I imagined that when I was a bit older, I would go far from my family to study and teach the children of my village. Everything changed when the government of Guatemala began to damage and murder. That was my dream no more. I think that schools should not be enclosed; children should not be inside four walls; they should study in a place where they coexist with nature. Someday I’ll teach children.

Continuing with the line of work that got underway in 2014, El Cine Rev[b]elado is offering a series of activities around audiovisual performance and film’s interrelation with other disciplines. It is an examination of the cinematographic experience beyond the darkened room and the projected image, relating it and transforming it to activate an experience around the audiovisual that questions not only its own language but also its entire structure and conventional logistics.

On 9 February 2014, the first edition of El Cine Rev[b]elado got underway at the CA2M Museum. Ten years later, we are still examining the interrelation between film and other disciplines by proposing a dialogue that rebels against the conventions of traditional cinematography in a constant quest for new revelations that lead us to other places and activate critical thinking.

In this anniversary edition, we are suggesting a reflection on the image itself in terms of its presence and especially its absence, associating it with orality, the word, the text and gesture via four performances by artists who inquire into and work within these contemporary artistic practices.

In 2024, we celebrated one decade and six editions of El Cine Rev[b]elado along with the CA2M Museum and everyone who has attended it, turning this series into a benchmark within the live and performing arts in the Community of Madrid.

Curated by Playtime Audiovisuales (Enrique Piñuel Martín and Natalia Piñuel Martín).

PROGRAMME

Sunday 11 February 6:30 pm ǀ NON-IMAGE: A TALK ABOUT PERCEPTION ǀ David Bestué, Marta Azparren and Haize Lizarazu.

Sunday 18 February 6 pm ǀ WASHINGTON ǀ Matías Daporta.

Sunday 25 February 6:30 pm ǀ FORTY-SIX SECONDS ǀ Los Torreznos.

Sunday 3 March 6:30 pm ǀ THINGS SAID ONCE ǀ Esperanza Collado.

Note: Only the session on 18 February will begin at 6 pm.

Playtime Audiovisuals

This is a Madrid-based cultural management platform founded by Natalia Piñuel and Enrique Piñuel in 2007 which is devoted to contemporary artistic practices. They undertake curatorial projects for art centres and cultural institutions like the Espacio Fundación Telefónica, Azkuna Zentroa, MUSAC, Instituto Cervantes, Centro Cultural de España en México and Tabakalera. They have also worked as programmers for film and music festivals like (S8) Mostra de Cinema Periférico de A Coruña, Festival de Jóvenes Realizadores de Granada, Actual de Logroño and Experimenta Club de Madrid.

Their most prominent projects include ‘Visiones contemporáneas - últimas tendencias del cine y el vídeo en España’ (Contemporary visions – latest trends in film and video in Spain) at Domus Artium 2002 (DA2) in Salamanca since 2013; the multidisciplinary festival ‘She Makes Noise’ at Madrid’s La Casa Encendida since 2015, which disseminates the role of women and nonbinary identities in electronic music and audiovisual experimentation; and the performance biennial ‘El Cine Rev[b]elado’ at the Museo Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo in Móstoles since 2014. They co-founded ‘L.A. OLA’, the contemporary Spanish film festival sited in Los Angeles, New York and Mexico City from 2015 to 2018. They also worked as independent film distributors for twelve years. They regularly contribute to different media and work as teachers.

AUTUMN 2024

It’s time to get our hands dirty to understand, on-site, what it means to keep soil alive. In this series, we’re going to teach you how to cultivate your own organic garden while also sharing tips and useful practices so you can make the most of its potential in the city and make our day-to-day lives more sustainable. We’ll begin by taking out the summer crops to make room for the autumn-winter ones.

Friday 20 September. Introduction to regenerative agriculture. 11:30 am to 1:30 pm

Our farm soils are increasingly degraded, and now’s the time to begin understanding how the earth that feeds our plants works in order to help to improve its fertility in our crops.

Friday 27 September. Hands dirty. 11:30 am to 1:30 pm

It’s time to get our hands dirty to understand, on-site, what it means to keep soil alive. Plus we’ll begin to take out the summer crops in order to make room for the autumn-winter ones. In this series, we’ll teach you how to grow your own organic garden while also sharing tips and useful practices so you can make so you can make the most of its potential in the city and make our day-to-day lives more sustainable.

Friday 4 October. Know your soil. 11:30 am to 1:30 pm

In this workshop, we’ll share tips about what our soil is like and what we can do to improve its fertility.

Friday 11 October. Seed harvest. 11:30 am to 1:30 pm

Growing our own seeds is a good way to protect biodiversity and not depend on having to buy them every year. We’ll offer advice on how to harvest and store seeds so you can use them next year.

Friday 18 October. Autumn planting. 11:30 am to 1:30 pm

We’ll grow what we have decided together to plant so they can begin offering their yields in the upcoming months and we can enjoy healthy, ecological, local produce.

Friday 25 October. Let’s make recycled paper. 11:30 am to 1:30 pm

But it’s not just any paper; it’ll be paper that you can plant to sow life after you use it.

Friday 8 November. Superstitions and beliefs about wild herbs. 11:30 am to 1:30 pm

Weeds versus herbs that cure. How much do we know about the properties and culture of harvesting the herbs that grow around us?

Friday 15 November. Moss-graffiti. 11:30 am to 1:30 pm

We’ll paint with the moss growing in Móstoles to decorate our walls.

Friday 22 November. Pottery for indoor plants I. 11:30 am to 1:30 pm

Let’s spark your creativity through clay to create self-watering pots for your favourite plants.

Friday 29 November. Pottery for indoor plants II. 11:30 am to 1:30 pm

We’ll finish our crafts and learn how to use our clay pots.

Friday 13 December. Christmas arrangements and wreaths. 11:30 am to 1:30 pm

We’ll make Christmas decorations to bedeck our houses during Christmastime using plastic-free materials.
 

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THE VEGETABLE GARDEN IN THE CENTRE

The spring planting season is beginning, and the possibilities are infinite. In this series, we’ll teach you how to grow your own organic garden while also sharing useful tips and practices to make the most of its potential in the city and make our day-to-day lives more sustainable.

Friday 5 April. Planting flowers in the garden. 11:30 am—1:30 pm

We aren’t always aware of how valuable flowers are in a vegetable garden, not only because of their unique aesthetics but also because of their medicinal properties and the importance of introducing them into our organic gardens to support our crops’ development.

Friday 12 April. Spring planting. 11:30 am—1:30 pm

Now that we’ve designed what we want to plant, it’s time to roll up our sleeves and get our hands dirty.

Friday 19 April. Planting and reproducing herbs. 11:30 am—1:30 pm

Another major ally in the vegetable garden is herbs. In this session, we’ll learn how to care for them, reproduce them and use them for both our own benefit and their usefulness in the garden.

Friday 26 April. Let’s make our own fertiliser. 11:30 am—1:30 pm

What’s an organic garden without a few basic lessons on how to make compost? Compost is essential to our plants’ growth and a key point in making a sustainable vegetable garden.

Friday 9 May. Natural remedies against pests and diseases in the garden. 11:30 am—1:30 pm

It’s important to know how to prevent problems in the garden that could ruin your harvest, along with possible ways to deal with them in organic farming.

Friday 17 May. Cleaning without toxins. 11:30 am—1:30 pm

Our home is where we spend the most time over the course of the day, so it’s important to pay attention to the type of products we use to clean it to avoid accumulations of toxic products.

Friday 24 May. Wax wrappers. 11:30 am—1:30 pm

Continuing with the theme of sustainable homes, we’re offering a practical workshop to learn how to make wrappers that replace the typical tin foil or plastic wrap. Come try it and see how you’ll fall in love with this simple technique.

Friday 31 May. Do we know how to recycle? 11:30 am—1:30 pm

By now, recycling has been part of our lives for decades, but do we really know how to recycle each product we want to throw away?

Summer Cutting Exchange. 5 June. 6—8 pm

In this Cutting Exchange session, not only can you bring your small indoor plants, as always, but we also want to encourage you to bring garden flowers to exchange as well.

Friday 7 June. The garden in the summer. 11:30 am—1:30 pm

It is becoming harder and harder to deal with heat waves in our vegetable gardens. In this workshop, we’ll give you a few tips so that your garden yields the bounty you want without drying up along the way.

Friday 14 June. Solar lunch. 11:30 am—1:30 pm

As always, we’ll finish the year with a very special farewell meal. We’ll cook in our solar kitchens and enjoy a pleasant picnic with zero energy expenditure.

Xisela García Moure has been putting farming and sustainability techniques into practice in the city for more than ten years. A member of the Instituto de Transición Rompe el Círculo and a resident of Móstoles, she is aware of our city’s possibilities and interests. An expert in organic farming and permaculture, she has worked in different estates and urban agriculture projects, and this year she aims to put her knowledge into practice by focusing on a greener Móstoles that is more aware of this great town’s needs.

The possibilities afforded by learning about the nature around us include more than just growing our own food. These months, we’ll explore local plants to learn what benefits we can gain from them and to make our own everyday items by collecting and transforming them.

Friday 19 January.  Kokedama. Bring it from there to here. 11:30 am—1:30 pm

Kokedama is a Japanese technique of keeping plants at home without pots. In addition to being a beautiful way to keep plants indoors, they also offer us the chance to learn more about our flora and how to care for them.

Friday 26 January. Hanging plants. A macramé workshop. 11:30 am—1:30 pm

We plant lovers like to fill as many spaces as possible with greenery. Hanging plants are a good way to fill places that would otherwise be out of reach. Learn how to make hanging pots with macramé, and along the way learn a bit more about how to care for creeping or hanging plants.

Friday 2 February. Art to ‘dye’ for[AS1] . Understanding natural dyes. 11:30 am—1:30 pm

One way or another, the majority of colours we know of come from the flora around us. This is a fun way to make prints using a very simple technique for creating decorations with plant motifs.

Friday 9 February. Soap workshop. Care for your skin while caring for the planet. 11:30 am—1:30 pm

This is a simple workshop where you can make your own soap using natural materials and learn about homemade natural cosmetics.

Friday 16 February. Candles and air fresheners. Another way of viewing our home. 11:30 am—1:30 pm

Learn more about the properties of plants, this time with a look indoors. After all, that’s where we spend most of the day, so it should be a safe, toxin-free space.

Understanding where our food comes from and how it is produced is the first step towards a healthy, sustainable diet. Join us and learn how to make seedbeds and different organic farming techniques.

Friday 8 March. Drop by drop. 11:30 am—1:30 pm

It may not seem like it, but the time of year when water is increasingly scarce is approaching, so we have to use piped water to water our crops. Learning techniques to lower the amount of water needed for plants helps to lessen the hydric stress on our environment during the summertime.

Friday 15 March. A garden in the city. 11:30 am—1:30 pm

This workshop will answer questions and teach you how to grow plants in the city, an artificial system where we can all do our part to make it as natural as possible.

Wednesday 20 March. SPRING CUTTINGS. Exchange of vegetable seeds 6—8 pm

In addition to being able to bring your indoor plants, as always, at this cutting session we want to expand the possibilities by sharing vegetable seeds and seedlings for those who like growing their own food. Plus, we’ll also hold a mini-workshop on vegetable gardens on terraces.

Xisela García Moure has been putting farming and sustainability techniques into practice in the city for more than ten years. A member of the Instituto de Transición Rompe el Círculo (Break the Circle Transition Institute) and a resident of Móstoles, she is aware of our city’s possibilities and interests. As an expert in organic farming and permaculture, she has worked on different estates and urban farm projects, and this year she aims to put her knowledge into practice by committing to a greener Móstoles that is more aware of this large town’s needs.

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.