educacion.ca2m@madrid.org

We will delve into the worlds proposed by Sol Calero and Santiago Sierra in the quest for the truth and provocativeness in performance, painting and installation. Using poetry, sound, taste and touch, Madrid Negro encourages us to walk through the different shows to reflect on the representation of racialised bodies in contemporary art.

On this immersive route, we will view the museum space through the metaphor of a plantation, where we will meet up with those who will accompany us in the different rooms to create a maroon network and build a plan to sabotage the colonial imaginary lurking behind art.

During this participatory investigation process, we will ask about the purpose of the works that feature our bodies and experiences. What is the basis of making us front and centre? What patterns are reproduced and what is the role of the artist as the executor of the piece?

Madrid Negro (María Paula Irizarry Gúzmán, Yeison F. García, Nieves Cisneros Pascual and Malcolm Riascos Bazán) is an artistic inquiry proposal based on studying the historical memory and contemporary heritage of Black people and Afro-descendants in the Community of Madrid.

At one of our meetings last school year, Goya told us that her [AS1] school, Zaleo, would no longer have students aged three to six. This news heralded the end of an educational model that has vanished over time, just like many other schools for children aged birth to six.

Based on this revelation, our conversations revolved around how this change not only affected schools but also community life. We nostalgically recalled parks that used to ring out with children’s laughter and unexpected discoveries in the morning: carefully tracing the route taken by an ant, looking at the shape of leaves, strolling through the market and being fascinated by its rhythm. We imagined how with larger student-to-teacher ratios per classroom, schools could no longer allow themselves the luxury of spending the mornings on outdoor activities. This scene, which is common yet exceptional, will never be repeated.

And we wondered about the consequences of this. What learning opportunities were we depriving the children of? We want to keep the image of young explorers on the streets before it disappears completely, valuing the lessons they can learn and discoveries they can make in parks, squares and markets.

This academic year 2024–2025, we are carrying on with the project of partnering with the EnterArte collective. This project, which focuses on education for children aged birth to six, aspires to transform our museum and classrooms into laboratories of experimentation about education and art. We want to strengthen our bonds through gatherings and activities that connect us with the essence of childhood.  With this partnership, we are seeking to make the museum a more accessible space adapted to this age group.

Last school year we worked on a project that involved the UFIL Pablo Neruda and the children’s residence of Móstoles. The goal was to create our own space in the residence’ garden that catered to the children’s wishes. Throughout the entire year, we partnered with the designer Curro Claret and the carpentry group at the UFIL to develop the prototype of a modular structure that the children could transform into whatever they want: a house, a stage, a platform for sleeping, a cave or even a swing.

In early summer, we completed the project with an opening party for the house. It was exciting to watch how the children made it their own as they explored the space. That has become a starting point, an excuse to take yet another step. We want to invite artists and creators to intervene in this space in order to resignify it as a place of work and research along with the children. This is only the beginning.

Soft House is a collaborative project with the children’s residence of Móstoles that aims to serve as an invitation to reconsider what a house means. It is a place to reflect on the concept of the nuclear family, to challenge it and suggest new ways of designing and intervening in our surroundings.

For some years now, the museum has worked closely with García Lorca school in Móstoles. Over this time, we have witnessed its teachers’ incredible commitment, who understand that educational practice is primarily a form of activism and a commitment to the surroundings and to the community near the school.

One clear example of this commitment is the school radio station, an initiative that involves the entire school. This radio station has not only allowed students to create their own content but has also become a mouthpiece for our museum and its programmes.

This academic year, we want to work with the school team to create a new project that inspires us and encourages us to think in the long term by establishing a shared language through which our two institutions can engage in dialogue and grow together.

Over these years, we have talked about the spaces around the school, their boundaries and their potential as new places of learning. Inspired by this vision, we have decided to develop an open classroom project using the school’s outdoor areas and vacant lots that connect it to the neighbourhood. It is a pedagogical approach based on self-building and play to create a space of encounter where students, teachers, families, and we ourselves can share, learn and live.