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CataláTEMPTATIVA COL.LECTIVA// COLLECTIVE ATTEMPT
Can Serrat invited Xavi Acarín to follow the residency during 2019 and organize an event in relation to the work of selected residents. Collective Attempt is the name of the project he has proposed. Below is more information about how we plan to celebrate this collaboration.
This programming will be the third iteration of Can Serrat’s annual PARASITIO project.
This event was cancelled for the summer of 2020, but has been rescheduled to September 2022.
WHAT IS TEMPTATIVA COL.LECTIVA// COLLECTIVE ATTEMPT?
Collective Attempt is a week-long workshop organized by curator Xavier Acarín. It will run at Can Serrat International Residency, an eighteen-century house in the natural park of Montserrat mountain outside of Barcelona, from September 4-September 11, 2022.
Invited guest curators and artists (see below) will propose a series of activities, readings, and exercises that will activate conversations and experiments around the increasing and urgent need for communities and societal structures built on notions of collaboration and cooperation, especially given today’s rise of myriad global-scaled crises.
This programming will be the third iteration of the residency’s annual PARASITIO project.
WHO IS INVOLVED?
Selected Can Serrat residents from 2019
Collective Attempt departs from the work of selected 2019 artists-in-residence at Can Serrat–Mohammad Alfaraj, Vanessa Donoso, Bruno Caracol, Duncan Gibbs, Natalya Gimson, Floy Krouchi, Yezica Tutic, and Marianne Vieulès. These artists’ practices are intertwined with similar themes to be explored in Collective Attempt such as community, working locally and with the land, play, permaculture, and environment.
Catalonia-based artists and curators
Organized by Xavier Acarín, the workshop includes the participation of three other curators and researchers from the Catalan context–Caterina Almirall, Ignacio de Antonio, and Jara Rocha–who will visit Can Serrat during the week and propose a series of activities, readings, and exercises. In collaboration with the above 2019 residents, these exercises will activate topics relevant to the artists’ respective practices and in relation to the Can Serrat community.
You!
This program is open to an additional 8 more participants working in art and research, from any nationality, and with availability to stay at Can Serrat for one week from September 4-11, 2022.
CURATORIAL CONTENT
Originally conceived in 2019 as an exploration of artistic collaborations between human and non-human agents, Collective Attempt was cancelled due to the outbreak of the pandemic. The virus, the great disruptor, appeared in our lives accelerating inequalities, mirroring the ecocide inflicted on millions of species, and propelling us into a future of fear and disrepair. Now, on the brink of a large-scale war, we are once again facing, “the worst crisis since 1945,” perhaps for the third time this century (2008, 2020, 2022).
In recent years, contemporary art has been focusing on care and infrastructure as ways to cultivate and dissect the planet’s interdependencies, placing collectivity as central to the debate on how to live together. As global tensions intensify, and as the fight between colonial domination and autonomous resistance heightens, is it possible to devise a practice of collectivity as convivial cohabitation?
For one week and through a series of physical, material, and sensorial explorations, we will consider the intricacies between bodies and technologies, permaculture and cooperation, mutualism and performativity. Focusing on food, soil, rocks, walks, plants and sounds, the participants will consider how artistic practices can devise collectivity as a malleable yet concrete manifestation of togetherness. Considering spontaneity, reciprocity, and emancipation as practices that encourage a cross-field of study, the participants will craft modes of conviviality, being-with, worlding, and disobedience, through a series of activities, such as readings, walks, actions, meals, and movements. Searching to surpass the neoliberal and global standardization of experience and knowledge, the project aims to develop methods of collaboration that are affirmative, embodied, performative, and situated, yet adaptable to other circumstances.
OUTCOMES
On the last day of the program, Saturday, September 10, 2022, Can Serrat will host a public event. The participants will work together towards this presentation, using the house and surrounding areas to plan a form of public engagement. Can Serrat will edit a small-format publication using a selection of materials from the participating group that will be included in the PARASITIO collection.
APPLICATION AND IMPORTANT DATES
Those interested in applying to participate in this special workshop should send an email to xacarinwieland@gmail.com with a CV, a short bio, a statement of interest (500 words), and a website link or portfolio of their work before April 10, 2022. Applications can be sent in Catalan, Spanish, or English. The selected candidates will receive further information.
The cost of the program is 273€ and includes:
- Shared lodging or the option to camp.
- A daily food basket of basic dried and fresh goods. (Additional groceries can be purchased in the village).
- Access to one prepared communal dinner.
- Access to all communal spaces (Studios, equipped kitchen to prepare meals, living room, toilets, etc.).
- Access to equipment (projectors, printing press, limited wifi).
- Access to the open activities organized for the international residency program (according to schedule availability).
- Access to all workshops and activities related to the Collective Attempt programming.
- Participation in a public presentation at the end of the week.
- Participation in designing an experimental small-format publication.
Application deadline: April 10, 2022
Arrive: September 4, 2022
Final presentation event: September 10, 2022
Departure: September 11, 2022
Bios
Xavier Acarín Wieland is a curator working at the intersection of performance, architecture, and art. His projects have addressed issues related to object performativity, material culture, precarity and globalization, architecture history, and radical thought. His exhibitions and projects have been presented at The New School for Social Research, Elastic City, Chez Bushwick, The Hessel Museum-CCS Bard, Peekskill Project 6, the Abrons Arts Center, ESTE Gallery, Knockdown Center and Unbag-Wendy’s Subway in New York, La Ira de Dios/CheLA in Buenos Aires, HIAP Suomenlinna and Muu Kaapeli in Helsinki and LOOP Festival in Barcelona. He has written texts for exhibitions at P.A.D. Gallery, Galería Rosa Santos, Galería ADN, and Participant Inc. His articles, essays, and interviews have been published at A-Desk (2008-present), Culturas-La Vanguardia, Esnorquel, Terremoto, and BRAC (University of Barcelona). He has participated as author of the books Designing Experience (Bloomsbury, 2014), and Dear Helen (CCS Bard, 2014). He is currently teaching at Parsons School of Design and at the School of Visual Arts in New York City.
Caterina Almirall, is an independent curator and professor. She started curating at the independent space El Passadís (Barcelona) and was active there between 2013 and 2016. Since then she has developed curatorial projects such as The Night of the Body, Bombon Projects, Barcelona, 2019; An exhibition as a spell, Can Felipa, Barcelona, 2018; 85% of the matter, C.A. Maristany, Sant Cugat/MAC, Mataró, 2017/18; I knock at the stone’s front door, La Puntual, Sant Cugat/La Panera, Lleida/Espacio Trapézio, Madrid, 2016; The Great Illusion, Sala d’art; Art Jove, Barcelona, 2015. She has curated the one year project Terrassa Comisariado 2017/18 with Measuring precisely the legendary peaks!, and the EPHEMERAL program at SWAB Art Fair Barcelona 2018, 2019, and 2020. She is currently preparing a curatorial project with BCNProducció 2019/20. Almirall has collaborated on numerous occasions with other artists on research and creative projects. She writes regularly for A*Desk cultural magazine. She is a professor of Sociology of Arts at the Fine Arts Faculty at Barcelona University since 2016. She graduated in Fine Arts and has a Master’s degree in Arts and Education from Barcelona University. She is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Arts and Visual Culture Education, also at Barcelona University, where she is researching the relationship between self-managed and institutional practices within the artistic context of Barcelona.
Ignacio de Antonio Antón, is a researcher and artist. Trained as an architect, he holds a Masters in Performance Studies from New York University, as a Fulbright Scholar. He is interested in artistic research and practice in the field of time-based arts and the relationship between architecture, choreography, the event, and the spectator. His artistic practice is informed by the field of action: happenings, performances and installations, with an experimental approach. The aim of his work deepens a site-specific and context-specific criticality, and brings it to a point of uncertainty, throwing questions concerning the meaning of this – and other – approaches. His research content has developed focuses on form and addresses the relationship between things. He has studied architecture and performance studies in Madrid, São Paulo, and New York. He is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Madrid within the research group Artea.
http://ignaciodeantonioanton.com/
Mohammad Alfaraj is an artist and freelance filmmaker. His practice reflects a collaborative and multifaceted relationship to making and sharing content, moving with ease between commercial jobs, network television projects, artworks for exhibition and materials shared via social media. When he is home, in Al Hassa, a city located in the Eastern Province and home to Saudi Arabia’s largest oasis and most productive oil fields, he works with a group of collaborators who regularly come together to support each other’s projects and produce photo and film content. In their collective work, they reflect on changes in the landscape and in the ways of life that they have witnessed during their lifetime. Alfaraj’s work has been shown at Athr Gallery, Jeddah (2018); Le murate Pac, Florence (2019); 21,39 Jeddah Arts (2017, 2019); Saudi Film Festival, Dammam (2015) and Dubai International Film Festival (2014). He worked as a programmer in both Saudi Film Festival and poetry house festival in Dammam. He was awarded first place within the student category for his documentary Lost at the Saudi Film Festival, Dammam (2015). He graduated from the King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals with a BSc in Applied Mechanical Engineering 2017. Born in 1993 in Al Hassa, Saudi Arabia, he currently lives and works in the Eastern Province, Saudi Arabia.
https://www.instagram.com/mohammadalfaraj/
Vanessa Donoso is a visual artist living and working between Dublin and Barcelona. She studied at the School of Arts and Design Llotja, Barcelona, the University of Barcelona and the Winchester College of Art, UK. She has recently exhibited nationally and internationally in selected solo exhibitions. Also in 2017, Vanessa completed two public works commissioned by the Royal College of Surgeons of Ireland and Facebook Head Quarters, both in Dublin. Vanessa completed a residency at Jiwar Creation and Society Artist Residency in Barcelona and worked as an invited artist on a project with the Black Church print studios, Dublin. Vanessa was awarded a full grant for an art residency in Can Serrat, Barcelona in 2019, was awarded a studio residency at the Royal Hibernian Academy in 2012, a Sculpture Workshop Residency Award and Bursary at the Fire Station Artists Studios in 2014, a year-long project studio at Temple Bar Gallery and Studios and a three-year studio membership also at Temple Bar Gallery and Studios. 2015/2018. She is represented by Kevin Kavanagh Gallery, Dublin.
Bruno Caracol is a project-based artist and studied Design and Visual Arts at the Faculty of Fine Arts of Lisbon, where he lives, and participates in the performance collective GMURDA. In 2017 he completed a Master in Communication Sciences, at FCSH-NOVA, around the idea of “wild nature” as a modern construct, and he participated in the DNA Contemporary Dance Festival, in Pamplona, Spain and the Biennial of Arts of Cerveira, Portugal. In recent years he has taken part in several artistic events, such as the “Plataforma Trafaria”, a collaboration between the Hallo Platform, from Hamburg, and the EDA Association, from Lisbon, in 2016 and the Architecture Triennial of Lisbon, in 2014. Between 2009 and 2011 he was part of Capacete, an artistic residence in Rio de Janeiro. During this period he took part in the event “V: E: R:”, in Terra Una, Minas Gerais; in the CCSP exhibition program, in São Paulo; and with María Moreira and Marcelo Wasem, organized a cycle of events on and with artists collectives from Rio de Janeiro, “Jogos de Escuta”
https://caracol.carbonmade.com/
Duncan Gibbs is a contemporary artist from England currently based in Barcelona. After graduating from the Slade School of Art, Duncan was living and working in London. After a recent collaborative exhibition with Limbo, an art space in Peckham, Duncan has been on a residency in rural Finland, developing site specific works. A main focus of this residency and an on going part of Duncan’s research has been experimenting with different approaches to documenting ephemeral art works.
Natalya Gimson is a writer who grew up in Olympia, Washington and is now based in Berlin, Germany. She graduated from The Evergreen State College in 2015. Her short stories and poetry explore the liminal space of multicultural identity, sexuality & the body’s experience and the effect of words on the page. She is the co-founder of the group Idea Salon. Her work has appeared in DADDY, INDIE, and SLOTH magazine.
Floy Krouchi is a sound artist and electroacoustic music composer from Paris. She works with sound as a phenomenon in its multiple dimensions: physical, plastic, instrumental, abstract, and radiophonic. She uses the vibrational and invisible qualities of this medium as a metaphor for invisible aspects of reality, questioning perceptions and creating disruptions in space and time. In her pieces, sound and silence are often forming an anthropological dispositive to collect, investigate and reorganize fragments of reality and identities through orality. Listening is considered as a practice of resistance –to imposed productivity of time, visual saturation, and challenge short attention spans. Lately, she has been investigating the relationship between technology, magic, and the techniques of the avant-garde (such as cut-ups and surrealism).
Yezica Tutic was born in 1987 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, making her the first generation born there, from a Yugoslavian immigrant family. In 2007, she enrolled at the Argentinian National University of Art in Buenos Aires, double majoring in Painting and in Scenery and Costumes. During her final year at UNA, she began a 2-year-long training with Tulio De Sagastizabal, an internationally acclaimed Argentinian abstract painter. A life-changing trip to New York City in 2013 inspired her subsequent move there, where she has been for the past 4 years. She has exhibited her work in different solo and group art shows in several galleries, artistic institutions, and warehouses. She also spends countless hours in her studio in Bushwick developing and investigating different ways to express herself artistically while she continues to educate and push herself forward to making an impact in the art scene of New York City.
http://www.yezicatutic.com – https://vimeo.com/user14757631
Marianne Vieulès is a visual artist and writer currently based on earth. Her latest works are poetry written by and for wild machines. This past year she worked on rehabilitating the stories and visibility of women who have participated in the history of computer science. In 2016 she began a story with cosmic irony, her training for an impossible space conquest. To this day, she still works on earth.