Descompetir: the art scene with other rules

We ask ourselves
How and with whom do we create? What does it mean to be artists today? What does it mean to be part of a participatory artistic project? What relations do we want to maintain with the communities we inhabit? What does it mean to do research for artistic practices? In which communities do we want to insert ourselves? What is a work of art and what is the contribution that each one of us wants to make to this intense present through our practices? These are some of the questions we want to ask ourselves with this project.

We want
We want to provoke porous encounters, an exchange of doings, sayings and desires, to imagine other ways of relating to each other based on empathy, affection and collaboration through artistic production. Although we think that the work is left over from the process, we are interested in this process also producing visibilities that are contagious and are shown. For this reason, in July, our programme will germinate in a presentation.

Descompetir
Is a programme that is articulated in three axes: political, affective and playful, and consists of continuously remaking situations and tactics for bonding, imagining and strengthening networks between us to disarm the narratives of rejection and hatred that seem to impose the negative affections that circulate in our societies. 

At each meeting we will debate different themes and make theoretical, political and/or poetic readings, and we will work on personal or group artistic projects.

Schedule of sessions for the selected persons in each group:

‘Jugadores’ and “Relatores” group:
Saturdays from 15 March to 26 July 2025, from 16:00 to 20:00 h.
* 15.03, Bar Lounge - Initial meeting ‘la jugada’.
* 22.03, 05.04, 12.04, 03.05, 10.05, 24.05, 07.06, 14.06, 21.06, 28.06, 05.07, 12.07, 19.07 and 26.07, Mòniques space.
* 29.03, 26.04, 31.05 and 28.06, Lecture room - Joint sessions.

‘Hinchada activa’ group :
15.03, 16:00 h, Bar Lounge - Initial meeting ‘la jugada’.
29.03, 16:00 - 20:00 h, Lecture room - Joint Session
26.04, 16:00 - 20:00 h, Lecture room - Joint Session
03.05, 10:00 - 14:00 h, Mòniques space - Specific session
31.05, 16:00 - 20:00 h, Lecture room- Joint Session
07.06, 10:00 - 14:00 h, Mòniques space - Specific session
28.06, 16:00 - 20:00 h, Lecture room- Joint Session

Places subject to change. Confirm meeting place.

Members:
Nora Ancarola
Kekena Corvalán
Valentina Gaia Lops

Valentina Gaia Lops, born in Milan, and after more than a decade living in Ireland, she has been living and working in Barcelona since 2022. She is a transdisciplinary artist and researcher, founder of the artistic research collective LiberArte. Her practice fuses diverse artistic languages, highlighting visual arts, movement and performance. She focuses on the creation of experiential and participatory projects, rooted in the politics of healing, from an intersectional and neurodivergent gaze. Her approach goes beyond the exhibition, focusing on the poetic and political force of collective artistic processes, situating herself at the intersection between art, gender, territory and education. Her work is developed in diverse contexts, immersing herself in intergenerational artistic and pedagogical dynamics.

Kekena Corvalán, curator, teacher and feminist writer. Professor of Latin American Art, Aesthetics and Cultural Theory. She coordinates Caudal Nómade de Arte, Afectos y Performance, a group of territorial studies and practices based at the Universidad Iberoamericana Puebla, Mexico. She has carried out numerous curatorial narratives, in spaces and museums in Latin America. She managed and curated the two editions of the collective, transfeminist and federal exhibition #paratodestode. Conceived and curated eight editions of the Curatorial Art Camp. She published Artistas latinoamericanas, un recorrido de diálogos conceptuales, Historias de cabeza partida, Curaduría afectiva, Curadurías del fin del mundo, Epistemología mechera, Testigos son los cuervos, a la salud de los archivos, Heroicas: arte, belleza, felicidad y nuestras vidas.

Nora Ancarola, visual artist. She lives and works in Barcelona. In 2004, she received the ACCA Award for Initiatives in 2008 for the creation of Edicions1010 with Marga Ximenez and in 2018 for the publication of Polititzacions del malestar, with Laia Manonelles and Daniel Gasol. In 2020 she received the Multiverse grant awarded by BBVA. In 2021 IN_CERT projecte with Jo Milne, she was nominated for best project and in 2022 she received, together with Amanda Cuesta, the first prize for the best historical exhibition, also awarded by the ACCA, for Un altre fi. LA RESTA at the CCMB. In 2024 she participates in the Biennal Manifesta 15 Barcelona Metropolitana. ‘As time goes by, my work is more and more closely related to two aspects of reality: the capacity of artistic languages to bring new readings to the small - or bigger - historical and social reality stories, and on the other hand, the observation and use of creative processes in their potential to manage discomfort as an instrument of transformation’.