Personally, I get quite angry about those exhibition “reviews” that end up saying ‘Recommended’, but for once I think the catchphrase is more than justified. Within the Visual Arts Program of the Oficina de Difusió Artística of the Barcelona Provincial Council, conferences aimed at municipal visual arts technicians are being organised next Monday 26 and Tuesday 27 November, which include a series of round tables coordinated by Oriol Fontdevila under the title: Visual arts, proximity and education. Some scenarios for shared production, in which we will participate presenting some of our projects together with Sitesize, Sinapsis, Carles Guerra, Teleduca and Antoni Abad. Oriol Fontdevila is, among other things, responsible for the
Idensitat
program and a member of the management team of the Sala d’Art Jove of the Generalitat de Catalunya.
The program of the round tables rightly points out certain changes that are taking place in the relationship between the visual arts and public institutions, specifically when this relationship occurs in contexts of proximity and linked to the educational sphere, and addresses the problems that these changes entail. Specifically, how is collaboration established between public institutions and cultural agents when they propose collective processes of cultural production or knowledge in substitution of the usual practices that consist of “bringing culture closer to citizens” (to use one of the most recurrent phrases)?
As Oriol Fontdevila explains it very well, we are posting the presentation text of the conference after the Continue reading…
Highly recommended (especially for municipal visual arts technicians…).
VISUAL ARTS, PROXIMITY AND EDUCATION
Some scenarios for shared production
When it comes to addressing the initiative of public institutions in relation to artistic practices and, even more so, when we are situated in the context of the cities and towns of the nearby territory, the concepts of proximity and education appear as frequent alliances, as well as indissociable attributes for the development of cultural programs. While we have often seen this correlation correspond to a generic paradigm around the democratization of the arts, we can currently detect a certain change in the intentionality of some of the initiatives. With these, both proximity and education are conceived as strategies related to a more complex approach in relation to the production of knowledge; which implies not only accessibility to culture, but also the transformation of culture into something truly democratic.
With the two round tables that we propose to develop with the common statement Visual arts, proximity and education: some scenarios for shared production, we want to debate around different cases that have been carried out recently in nearby municipalities. Whether they are one-off actions, programs of collectives, institutions, or have been developed by initiative of artists, educators or cultural managers, all the initiatives coincide in rethinking the relations that exist between the different stakeholders, with the experimentation of models that, while prioritizing on the one hand the aspects of the creation of audiences and social participation, also question, at the same time, the role that is attributed to artists, educators and that of the cultural policies themselves.
Oriol Fontdevila
Coordination and moderation of the round tables