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Conversationalists
Conversationalists A
October 28, 2014 - 6:30 p.m., Sabatini Building, Auditorium
What, How and for Whom (WHW), Subtramas (Diego del Pozo, Montse Romaní, Virginia Villaplana) , João Fernandes and Jesús Carrillo discuss art as really “useful” knowledge.Participants
What, How and for Whom (WHW) is a curatorial collective founded in 1999. Based in Zagreb (Croatia), its members are Ivet Ćurlin, Ana Dević, Nataša Ilić and Sabina Sabolović, curators of the Really Useful Knowledge exhibition.
Subtramas (Diego del Pozo, Montse Romaní, Virginia Villaplana) is an art research project concerned with digital visual culture and collaborative production. Its members participate in the exhibition as artists and have devised the programme Action for Really Useful Knowledge and the itineraries of the exhibition’s mediation programme.
João Fernandes is the Deputy Director of Art at the Museo Reina Sofía.
Jesús Carrillo is the Head of Cultural Programmes at the Museo Reina Sofía and Senior Lecturer in the Department of Art History at the Autonomous University of Madrid.
Conversationalists B
November 20, 2014 - 7:00 p.m.
Contrabandos (the Independent Publishers Association of the Political Book) and the open and collaborative library Bookcamping engage in an open dialogue with the audience on the possibilities of publishing on the fringes of cultural industries.On the same day, at 4.40 p.m., both collectives will construct, with the help of those in attendance, a book “tree” on new political imaginaries. Location: Cuesta de Moyano, booth 20, Madrid.
Participants
Contrabandos is an independent publishers association focused on the promotion of texts and materials with a strong political and social focal point: Tierradenadie, Proteus, Hiru, Pol-len, Bellaterra, El Viejo Topo, Txalaparta, Ned, La Oveja Roja, Octaedro, Icaria, Laertes and Ediciones del Oriente y del Mediterráneo.
Bookcamping is an open and collaborative digital library for reviewing and downloading content in diverse formats. It aims to socialise reading and encourage a culture of sharing.
Conversationalists C
January 10, 2015 - 11:00 a.m.
Esta es una Plaza (Madrid), El Patio Maravillas (Madrid), La Casa Invisible (Málaga) and Observatorio Metropolitano de Barcelona will discuss the learning that emerges from socio-cultural experiences, politics and knowledge revolving around a new citizenship.Participants
Esta es una Plaza is an association set up around a public space, managed by local residents, where alternatives for outdoor leisure, exchange and socialisation are put forward.
El Patio Maravillas is a self-managed space located in the Malasaña neighbourhood of Madrid. It works towards a system of citizen participation and sets out to be a tool with which to build a new democracy. Different collectives are involved and offer diverse activities based on cooperation.
La Casa Invisible is a Social and Cultural Centre Managed by Citizens. Located in Málaga, it offers a space for cultural experimentation, training and new models of citizen management.
Observatorio Metropolitano de Barcelona is an open research group providing a critical analysis of urban commercialisation and the development of the public sphere in Barcelona.
Conversationalists D
January 22 enero, 2015 - 7:00 p.m.
Las Lindes (CA2M), the collective Cine Sin Autor and staff from the Museo Reina Sofía’s Education Department discuss the development of audiovisual prototypes in the spheres of education and creation.Participants
Las Lindes (CA2M) is a research and action group that works on ways of creating a new narrative of critical education practices, centring its research on education, art and cultural practices.
Cine sin Autor is a collective devoted to filmic art practices that sets out a new model of horizontal production for collective creation and without the authorship of film works.
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Narrators
Narrators A
January 17, 2015 - 7:00 p.m.
The research and artistic production collective Declinación Magnética considers action that highlights popular and illegitimate knowledge.Declinación Magnética is a research and artistic production collective made up of visual artists, theorists and curators. Its activity focuses on audiovisual production – between fiction and essay – as a tool for reflecting on the colonial past and present within the framework of the current global crisis.
Narrators B
January 16, 2015 - 7:00 p.m. Jam Session Body-to-Body Readings
January 23, 2015 - 7:00 p.m. Improper Acts
February 6, 2015 - 7:00 p.m. Workshop on the manufacturing of DIY happiness
somatecxs. Research/production group
n acciones. bodies, narratives and memories
Jam Session Body-to-Body Readings
Friday 16 January, 7 p.m.
Chto Delat RoomThe Jam Session is an act of readings, both interlocked and polyphonic, that follows an open score. It sets out from the idea that narrations are not limited to orality, meaning that the body and bodies are not just one theme to read and enter into dialogue about, but instead participate in the reading. Everyone attending this activity is invited to explore the space, bodies and words, or the absence of them.
Improper Acts
Friday 23 January, 7 p.m.
Subtramas RoomImproper Acts are the last words in an old conversation, a dialogic project through the choreography of gestures, actions, sounds and experiences that question the long and complex journey undertaken by the Museo Reina Sofía as disciplinary architecture. By understanding the bodies and spaces in the museum diachronically, improper acts and forms of presence are evoked from the primitive hospital complex which are alien to its current use as an arts centre, but nevertheless, form part of the normative genealogy that constructs the edifice and its memory.
Workshop on the manufacturing of DIY happiness
Friday 6 February, 7 p.m.
Subtramas RoomFaced with the question posed by the Subtramas collective, How do we activate our imagination to create happiness that differs from the one organised by capitalism? Somatecxs offers a do-it-yourself manufacturing workshop of devices and prostheses facilitating happiness that appeals to creative thought.
To register, please send an email to programasculturales2@museoreinasofia.es. If you think of any device or prosthesis manufacture, you can tell us. A good-mood viewfinder? A holiday-weather simulator? An affection dispenser? A noise or complaint attenuator? Gluten- and glucose-free happiness pills? The most colourful prototypes will be chosen and built collectively.
somatcxs is a project stemming from the Museo Reina Sofía programme of Critical Practices “Somatheque. Living and Resisting in the Neoliberal condition”, run by Beatriz Preciado, in what is an approach to the modern body as a political and cultural archive.
Narrators C
January 31, 2015 - 6:30 p.m.
Me acuerdo… is a memorial collective in which diverse feminist and queer groups narrate the conquests of sexual diversity rights and the political learning processes in recent decades in Spain.Coordinators
Fefa Vila, cultural manager, social researcher and coordinator in the Department of projects and research within the EU at the Fundación FOREM. Her work is developed around the construction of gender in present-day societies from critical feminist positions. She also currently forms part of the queer work group in Madrid.
Elvira Siurana, secretary for the Spanish Feminist Party, co-director of the Publishing House "Vindicación Feminista" and editor of the theorist publication “Poder y Libertad”.
Guest artist
Floy Krouchi is an artist and electroacoustic composer that experiments with the sounds and silences in the world.
With the participation of: Ada Vila, Ana Rossetti, Anna Mezz, Begoña Marugán, Begoña Pernas, Carmen Jiménez, Carmen Romero, Cipri Martín, Cris del Toro, Empar Pineda, Esther Ortega, Eva Corredera, Flor Martínez, Isabel Cadenas, Isabela Vázquez, Izaskun Sánchez, Lucas Platero, Nieves Salobral, Rocío Lleó, Susana Sánchez, Tere Maldonado, Teresa Labrador.
Narrators D
All Thursdays and Saturdays - 7:00 p.m.
Readings and interpretations of a selection of incident reports on surveillance and mediation, along with reports on complaints, suggestions and congratulations compiled by the Museo team. These actions make the social dynamic that takes place in the exhibition space visible through the collection of multiple voices that pass through the museum. The diversity of visitors’ attitudes and the role of the museum staff identify them as receptive and active agents in the exhibition process, always placing them at the centre of this experience. In each session, due to take place in different exhibition halls, a range of combinations and variations will be carried out on the texts by students from the Museo Reina Sofía Study Centre. -
Instigators
Instigators A
January 17, 2015 - 11:00 a.m.
The collectives Cidespu, EnterArte and Acción educative, connected to the Marea Verde, carry out an intervention in defence of state education.Participants
Cidespu is an association of Citizens in Defence of Public Education in Móstoles (Madrid) that aims to safeguard the quality of public teaching in the local area.
Acción Educativa, made up of professionals from the sphere of education, works towards critical and creative education as a method of renewed teaching.
EnterArte is a work group comprised of teachers and an initiative that aims to bring art and schools closer together, introducing art education as an active learning method in the classroom.
Instigators B
December 14, 2014 First round: 11:00 a.m. Second round: 12:30 p.m.
MEDSAP-Marea Blanca from Madrid recount collective learning in their assertions in defence of public healthcare.MEDSAP (a Table in Defence of Public Healthcare in Madrid) is made up of a series of collectives and associations that uphold the defence of public healthcare and the active fight against the processes of privatisation in the Madrid healthcare system, demanding changes to the social and economic model.
January 8, 2015 - 6:30 p.m.
Yo SÍ Sanidad Universal (against healthcare exclusion and in favour of the collectivisation of knowledge) invites everyone to their monthly Agora , on this occasion about “Ethical and practical health”.Yo SÍ Sanidad Universal is defined as a movement of civil disobedience comprised of workers and patients from the National Healthcare system that demand universal health care and provide support for cases of healthcare exclusion.
Instigators C
November 22, 2014 - 7:00 p.m.
Eskalera Karakola. C/ Embajadores nº 52, Madrid.
The Possible care and domestic struggles workshop with the groups Senda de cuidados and Territorio Doméstico.Limited places. Further information and registration at: sendadecuidados@gmail.com
February 1, 2015 - 12:00 p.m.
The groups Senda de cuidados and Territorio Doméstico carry out an action for the social reorganisation of care.Participants
Senda de cuidados is a non-profit organisation aimed at building alternative decent work in the field of care. They use the idea of Cuidadanía, which in Spanish plays with the words Citizenship and Care, as they work towards building new lifestyles based on collective care.
Territorio Doméstico is made up of women from SEDOAC (Active Domestic Service), the Cita de Mujeres de Lavapiés group and the Agencia de Asuntos Precarios, who have found a space for sharing, analysing and proposing new forms of organisation among those that form part of domestic staff.
Instigators D
October 30, 2014 - 7:00 p.m.
María Laura Rosa holds an intervention on the artistic and activist practices (Argentina).María Laura Rosa is a researcher, teacher and specialist in art and gender. She is part of the research group “Women, politics and diversity in the ‘70s”, from the Interdisciplinary Institute of Gender Studies at the University of Buenos Aires, and the Argentinian Association of Art Critics.
February 4, 2015 - 7:00 p.m.
Edificio Sabatini, Sala Bóvedas
Acces through Calle Santa Isabel, 52
The group Península. Procesos coloniales y prácticas artísticas y curatoriales holds an activity on the critical questioning of colonial images.Limited seating. Registration in programasculturales2@museoreinasofia.es
Península is a debate platform on art, coloniality and curatorship related to Spanish and Portuguese history, their colonial processes and the latency of their power relations in the present.
Public action for Really Useful Knowledge
Held on 28, 30 oct, 01, 06, 08, 13, 15, 20, 22, 27, 29 nov, 04, 06, 11, 13, 14, 18, 20, 27 dic 2014; 03, 08, 09, 10, 15, 17, 22, 23, 24, 29, 31 ene, 01, 05, 06, 07 feb 2015
A programme of actions and activities within the context of the exhibition Really Useful Knowledge, devised by the collective Subtramas (Diego del Pozo, Montse Romaní and Virginia Villaplana). These actions take place inside the galleries of the exhibition and feature participation from different social and cultural collectives.
The programme is made up of three types of actions, grouped under the name Conversationalists, Narrators and Instigators. Each typology encompasses actions linked, respectively, to the four questions that activate the mediation itineraries proposed by Subtramas: Why is learning together useful? (Route A), How do we activate our imagination to create happiness that differs from the one organised by capitalism? (Route B), What learning comes out of social movements? (Route C) and What can politically activate images? (Route D).
The Conversationalists present a series of conversations concerning the collective production of knowledge and experiences and their conflicts and effects.
The Narrators relate stories and text readings that compile a critical memory with the knowledge established.
The Instigators recount the conquests of social struggles via the strategies of representation used in present-day campaigns and citizen mobilisations.
The exhibition Really Useful Knowledge has been organised by the Museo Reina Sofía within the framework of the project “The Uses of Art” from the European network of museums L’Internationale.
![Miguel Brieva, ilustración de la novela infantil Manuela y los Cakirukos (Reservoir Books, 2022) [izquierda] y Cibeles no conduzcas, 2023 [derecha]. Cortesía del artista](https://recursos.museoreinasofia.es/styles/small_landscape/public/Actividades/ecologias_del_deseo_utopico.jpg.webp)
![Ángel Alonso, Charbon [Carbón], 1964. Museo Reina Sofía](https://recursos.museoreinasofia.es/styles/small_landscape/public/Actividades/perspectivas_ecoambientales.jpg.webp)
Más actividades
Manuel Correa. The Shape of Now
13 DIC 2025
The Shape of Now is a documentary that explores the challenges and paradoxes of memory, reparation and post-conflict justice, extending a defiant and questioning gaze towards the six-decade armed conflict in which the Colombian State, guerrillas and paramilitary groups clashed to leave millions of victims in the country. The screening is conducted by the Aesthetics of Peace and Desertion Tactics study group and includes a presentation by and discussion with the film’s director, Manuel Correa.
The film surveys the consequences of the peace agreements signed in 2016 between the Colombian State and the FARC guerrilla organisation through the optics of different victims. It was recorded shortly after this signing, a time in which doubts lingered over the country’s future, with many groups speculating in the narration. Correa harnesses the power of images, visual and bodily memory, fiction and re-staging as tools for understanding the conflict, memory and healing, as well as for the achievement of a just peace that acknowledges and remembers all victims.
The activity is framed inside the research propelled by Aesthetics of Peace and Desertion Tactics, a study group developed by the Museo’s Study Directorship and Study Centre. This annual group seeks to rethink, from a theoretical-critical and historical-artistic perspective, the complex framework of concepts and exercises which operate under the notion of pacifism. A term that calls on not only myriad practices ranging from anti-militarism and anti-war movements to activism for non-violence, but also opens topical debates around violence, justice, reparation and desertion.
Framed in this context, the screening seeks to reflect on propositions of transitional and anti-punitive justice, and on an overlapping with artistic and audiovisual practices, particularly in conflicts that have engendered serious human rights violations. In such conflicts, the role played by audiovisual productions encompasses numerous challenges and ethical, aesthetic and political debates, among them those related to the limits of representation, the issue of revictimisation and the risks involved in the artistic commitment to justice. These themes will be addressed in a discussion held after the session.
Francisco López and Barbara Ellison
Thursday, 11 December - 8pm
The third session in the series brings together two international reference points in sound art in one evening — two independent performances which converse through their proximity here. Barbara Ellison opens proceedings with a piece centred on the perceptively ambiguous and the ghostly, where voices, sounds and materials become spectral manifestations.
This is followed by Francisco López, an internationally renowned Spanish sound artist, who presents one of his radical immersions in deep listening, with his work an invitation to submerge oneself in sound matter as a transformative experience.
This double session sets forth an encounter between two artists who, from different perspectives, share the same search: to open ears to territories where sound becomes a poetic force and space of resistance.
Long Live L’Abo! Celluloid and Activism
4, 5, 6 DIC 2025
The third instalment of Cinema Commons, a research, programming and publishing project which explores how film articulates interpretive communities, fosters collective debate and devises proposals for common spaces, presents L’Abominable, an artist- and film-maker-run independent film-lab founded in 1996 on the outskirts of Paris. The programme is structured around three sessions: a lecture-workshop on L’Abominable, conducted by film-makers Pilar Monsell and Camilo Restrepo; a session of short films in 16mm produced in L’Abominable; and the feature-length film Une île et une nuit (An Island and One Night), made by the Les Pirates des Lentillères collective.
Better known by the shortened version of L’Abo, the artist-run laboratory emerged in response to disappearing infrastructures in artisan film-making and endeavours to offer the creative community a self-managed space in which to produce, develop and screen films in analogue formats such as Super8, 16mm and 35mm. With this underpinning, L’Abo champions the aesthetic and political experimentation of analogue cinema opposite digital hegemony.
L'Abominable, more than a simple work tool, has become a space of artistic and social exchange which has knitted together a community. It is characterised by endowing technique with a poetic dimension, in a community that manufactures its own film devices, and situates pedagogy at its core — the film-makers and artists train one another on common ground. Further, it seeks to forge an opening to all experimental languages around celluloid, for instance installation and film performance, while constituting a place of preservation and conservation in the history of the medium.
L'Abominable is an example of how, at the height of the digital age, artists and film-makers are recovering cinematography and vindicating the production process in its entirety. This autonomy invents alternative routes in the industry as it creates new tools, develops other forms of expression and explores unknown cinematic territories.
Estrella de Diego Lecture. Holding Your Brain While You Sleep
Wednesday, 3 December 2025 – 7pm
Framed inside the Museo Reina Sofía’s retrospective exhibition devoted to Maruja Mallo, this lecture delivered by Estrella de Diego draws attention to the impact of the artist’s return to Spain after her three-decade exile in Latin America.
Committed to values of progress and renewal in the Second Republic, Mallo was forced into exile to Argentina with the outbreak of the Civil War and would not go back to Spain to settle definitively until 1965 — a return that was, ultimately, a second exile.
Mallo saw out her prolific artistic trajectory with two impactful series: Moradores del vacío (Dwellers of the Void, 1968–1980) and Viajeros del éter (Ether Travelers, 1982), entering her most esoteric period in which she drew inspiration from her “levitational experiences” of crossing the Andes and sailing the Pacific. Her travels, both real and imaginary, became encounters with superhuman dimensions.
In parallel, her public persona gained traction as she became a popular figure and a key representative of the Generation of ‘27 — the other members of which also started returning to Spain.
This lecture is part of the Art and Exile series, which seeks to explore in greater depth one of the defining aspects of Maruja Mallo’s life and work: her experience of exile. An experience which for Mallo was twofold: the time she spent in the Americas and her complex return to Spain.
Haunting History
Friday, 28 November 2025 – 6pm
Curator Patricio Majano invites writer Elena Salamanca, artist Beatriz Cortez and artist and writer Olivier Marboeuf to explore, in conversation, the political agency of artistic forms in relation to the spectral resonances in Central America, the Caribbean, and their diasporas.
Central America is a region inhabited by spectres that continually interrupt any attempt at historical closure. Five centuries of colonisation, counterinsurgency wars, genocides, dictatorships and deportations have resulted in accumulated traumas and persistent forms of violence that still move around under the surface of the present. More than past ruins, these spectres are material forces which persist, invade and reclaim the reparation and reconfiguration of the frameworks of historical legibility. In Central American artistic practice, these spectral presences become method, counter-archive and counter-pedagogy.
Taking El Salvador as both axis and prism, this conference seeks to think about “ghostliness”, not as a metaphor but as a political and aesthetic technology, from the following questions: How is that which persists beyond disappearance manifested? Who speaks from amputation? How does memory operate when the State apparatus has systematically searched for its erasure? How is the spectral tapped into as a form of resistance? Which conditions and methods allow art to articulate a claim, reparation and justice when hegemonic narratives are upheld in denial?
Over the course of 2025, these questions have articulated the research residency of Salvadoran curator Patricio Majano in the The Cáder Institute of Central American Art (ICAC) by virtue of the project Amputated Identities: Ghosts in Salvadoran Art. Majano’s research traces genealogies and resonances between Salvadoran contemporary art, the Indigenous genocide of 1932 and the Civil War (1980–1992), interrogating how these unresolved forms of violence operate with artistic subject matter.
Beyond a closing act of the ICAC residency, this encounter stresses exchange and dialogue as method: opening the process and sharing questions, tensions and unresolved challenges — not as conclusions, but as work in progress.