Situation 1. The Home

The artist is conceived less as an individual producer of discrete objects than as a collaborator and producer of situations; the work of art as a finite, portable, commodifiable product, is reconceived as an ongoing or long-term project with an unclear beginning and end; while the audience, previously conceived as a “viewer” or “beholder”, is now repositioned as a co-producer or participant.   

Claire Bishop, Artificial Hells: Participatory Art and the Politics of Spectatorship  

Every four months, the Santa Mònica organises a series of exhibitions based on collective creative processes. These processes are fostered by a close, radical curatorial practice, understood as a form of accompaniment and attention. Through this exercise of institutional dehierarchising, the new Santa Mònica embraces a methodology that promotes diverse situations of horizontal participation. 

That's why (creating) Situations aims to be a training programme that analyses exhibition cycles and their creative processes from the inside. A tool designed to understand and become immersed in this methodology from within.

With this programme, the Santa Mònica opens its doors to those interested in curating as a practice of care and attention, and in the exhibition process. The programme thus focuses on modes of joint co-creation amongst curators, artists and context, interpreting and reactivating situations that have arisen within exhibition display. 

The title (creating) Situations is inspired by Claire Bishop’s remarks on the displacement of the hegemony of artistic objectuality, which relocate spectatorship in an active role and qualify the relational logics diagnosed by Nicolas Bourriaud in the nineties. This participative nature not only featured in each exhibition series at the Santa Mònica, but also applied in this programme, with the aim of activating artistic thought and research from the collective, with a process-based vocation and a connection to the land. For this reason the programme not only centres on the Santa Mònica, but is also profoundly positioned in connection with Barcelona’s cultural agenda. 

Programme: 

• Sessions with research groups: the Santa Mònica consists of a series of research programmes on current issues such as utopia, pandemics, digitalisation and inclusivity, which at the same time propose sessions in this course where they will dialogue with international figures:  
  • Sursiendo  (collective of activists for digital rights and sustainability). 
    
  • Mireia Sallarès  (artist). 
    
  • Miquel Bassols  (psychoanalyst and former president of the World Association of Psychoanalysis). 
  • Gema Darbo  (Independent Curator and Research Fellow at Goldsmiths). 
    
  • Pli-é collective  (research and curatorial art group). 
    
  • Rafaela Pimentel (feminist activist and domestic worker, member of Territorio Doméstico).
  • Yaiza Hernández (lecturer in Visual Cultures at Goldsmiths).
  • Miquel Barcelona Palau (dancer and choreographer).
  • Emanuele Coccia (philosopher, professor at the École des Hautes Études Supérieures des Sciences Sociales in Paris).
     
• Sessions with the curators and artists: these sessions will deal with the inner workings of the curatorial process that has led to the current exhibition on the idea of "Home". 
   
• Reading group: a selection of important texts on art institutions, curatorship understood as a relational practice and concepts around the current exhibition on home will be read and discussed together, with the following speakers: Enric Puig (director of Santa Mònica), Clara Laguillo (cultural worker) and Adrià Porta Caballé (pre-doctoral researcher in philosophy at the UB). 
   
• Cultural agenda: with the aim of this course to situate itself in the cultural context of the city, the programme includes a series of sessions in other facilities with proposals related to the programme, including a film cycle at the Filmoteca de Catalunya, Halfhouse, MACBA and Fundació Joan Brossa Centre de les Arts Lliures.

Who is it for?
 

The course is designed for those seeking a theoretical and practical introduction following a bachelor’s or master’s degree. The Santa Mònica reveals the processes and internals hidden behind an exhibition as a contribution to future artistic, curatorial and theoretical careers. 

Places are limited. The Santa Mònica will therefore base its selection of students on their CVs and cover letters. There is no age limit or previous qualification requirement, but preference will be given to those with life, academic or professional experience that they can contribute to the rest of the group.