The Museo Reina Sofía program is based on a redefinition of the function of museums, on an alternative to the institution's historical models. Conceived to be a place that generates opportunities for sociability and discussion in the public sphere, the Museum proposes models of resistance in a society in which consumption and merchandise predominate and in which production has become fragmented, thus resulting in a geopolitical map hitherto unknown, and also in new social classes, relations and subjectivities. Creating alternative narrations, developing new forms of intermediation and forming active spectators are the Museum's main priorities.
The Museum challenges the central-peripheral dynamic and the univocal vision of art history. Art history is no longer written as if it were comprised of large continents, but rather as a kind of archipelago in which varying relations emerge in an ever-changing cartography. Here other forms of modernity, previously considered subordinate, are able to fully express their complexity. Artists previously considered secondary or derivative have their own voice, challenging, thanks to new links of solidarity with intellectuals and other collectives, the rules established in the Western European world.
The Museum's Collection is intended to create intertwining narrations that take the form of archives. Aesthetic autonomy is diluted by the inclusion – all on the same level – of documents, artwork, books, journals or photographs, thus giving rise to alternative narrations that give back to viewers knowledge, aesthetic experience and the possibility of comprehending a historical moment. The idea is to create an archive of archives that gives to the Other the voice and capacity with which to archive, rethink and narrate its own history. In this model, in contrast with that of capitalist accumulation, he or she who receives stories certainly becomes richer, but he or she who tells the stories is no less rich. The writing of history thus takes place from the bottom up, with a dissociation between memory and property.
The Museum proposes an educational conception that eliminates hierarchies and highlights the revitalising power of culture, based on its conviction that each one of us knows how to rediscover and redefine knowledge. The work of art represents common ground for the artist and the spectator, and as such it facilitates a relationship with others and with an environment perceived not as belonging to someone else but rather as one's own. It enables us to see ourselves both as subjects and as objects of the perception of others, thus creating a new, liberating space for sociability. In addition, the Museum is a place for debate and research through seminars and University programs born of the interaction, which is neither unduly influenced nor hierarchised, between education and the array of activities – exhibitions, the Collection, public programs – carried out by the Museum.
