Can Serrat, approximately 1187 square meters, is a classic old Catalan farmhouse. In 1989, eleven Norwegian artists bought the house and renovations began. The space operates as a center for artistic and writing production. Can Serrat functions as a community where people from different cultures, fields, and topics of research can work on their own process and meet and exchange under the same roof.
As a space of creation, community, and process, the activities we organize are oriented around this idea and reflect an interest in being present to that process, research, question, doubt, understanding, curiosity, and debate.
Can Serrat is located in the beautiful environment of El Bruc, a small village that skirts the mountain of Montserrat, and is just forty-five kilometers from Barcelona. The house provides various spaces and workshops for working in an awe-inspiring surrounding natural environment. A pleasant walk along paths and trails leads one from the house to the foot of the mountain, where one can enjoy a spectacular view of Les Agülles, or The Needles, of Montserrat.
The house organizes ongoing projects that everyone is welcome to participate in during their stay here. These include, but are not limited to, a selected residency program for contemporary art and writing projects, a local nonprofit organization called Els Amics de Can Serrat that organizes activities within the local context, and a co-op for local and ecological products. Every month the house welcomes and organizes different activities in order to activate the research of the projects in production: sound recorded debates proposed by residents themselves, a dinner in which we invite local citizens of the village to have a cultural exchange with the household, project presentations, a book club in which we share resources by reading excerpts and texts in various languages, ping pong, and visits to relevant cultural project spaces and other residencies.