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16 May, 2014 Nouvel Building, Auditorium 200
Suely Rolnik. For the Ethics of Thought
Admission: Free entry, until full capacity is reached
Walking around the Möbius strip with Brazilian artist Lygia Clark, this conference sees Suely Rolnik develop the idea of life as a topological surface on which strength and form are inseparable. The paradoxical relationship that exists between the aesthetic-clinical relationship of strengths (knowing body), on one side, and the cultural-sensitive evaluation of form, on the other, triggers desire as an action of thought capable of reshaping reality at its points of asphyxiation, in the words of the Brazilian psychoanalyst. Rolnik questions different politics in the production of thoughts, based on the notions of subjectivity when faced with this inescapable paradox. The focus reverts back to the notion that Rolnik renders on the colonial unconsciousness marked by the subconscious repression of the knowing body in the production of thought, desire and subjectivity. According to the author, such repression forms the basis of modern Western culture and represents an essential part of its colonising enterprise from a micropolitical perspective as it is imposed on suppressed societies. Thus, the return of the repressed body in the exercise of thought depends on the necessary strength and guile to mock the colonial subconscious, which today still structures subjectivity and orients desires at play. These outbreaks happen in the current world as injections of the knowing body in the dying anthrophallecentric arteries of Western modernity in crisis.
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17 May, 2014 Nouvel Building, Auditorium 200
José Antonio Sánchez, Fernando Quesada, Óscar Cornago, Ixiar Rozas, Quim Pujol, Esther Belvis. Round Table
Admission: Free entry, until full capacity is reached
Dispersion has affected all possible spheres, diluting the borders between the public and private, work and occupation, intimacy and publicity, in which theatricality from affection plays a key role after having jumped from traditional spheres to others that previously lacked full validity. Faced with this situation, at certain points the discourse moves towards future nostalgia when it comes to repositioning limits erased by the totalising effect of dispersion. This table, comprised of course directors and members of the ARTEA research group, offers an idea-sharing session involving the materials reviewed over the course of the year on the networks of affection and certain hypotheses, such as the space for collaborations, artistic practice from the care for or defence of the independence of life, not art.
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15, 16, 17 and 18 May, 2014 Nouvel Building, Protocol Room
Presentation of projects, stage interventions and encounters
The project presentations, as well as the encounters and stage interventions, belong to the following lines of investigation:
Archives of Affection
Why archive? What is there beyond the inventory, and can experience be collected? With participation from Ana Salomé Branco, Paloma Calle, Rosa Casado, Joan Casellas, Nieves Correa, Belén Cueto, Bruno Leitão, Rosell Meseguer, Javier Núñez, Joseph Patricio and Catarina Simão, Archives of Affection, coordinated by Óscar Cornago and Zara Rodríguez, is the continuation of an investigation space for stage practices about the ways of finding and identifying ourselves socially, the place of affection and the culture of work. The exchange of the relation, the immediacy of the present, the changing experience of the other and living memory are some of the places from which to reconsider the sense of archive, the relationship with history and profitability as a principle of social organisation.
Expanded Theatricalities
This year’s course is devoted to an investigation into networks of affection as a space for theatricality. The range of practices this seminar will address from these diverse perspectives is broad, and comprises small-format experiences, intimate work laboratories that create personal spaces based on affection, which are not penetrated by the colonisation of the dramatic (or if it occurs it is managed as another form of theatricality with which to experiment), workshops in which the emphasis on the creation of an ‘us’ based on emotion that can be found on the edges of the stage circuit.
Inhabiting Dispersion
Held on 15, 16, 17, 18, 19 may 2014
Theatricality, which at one time could have been considered an exclusive condition of the public, has spread into traditionally private spheres: the home, friendship and in relationships of coexistence and. In parallel, privacy has flowed into these spheres, and it is from here that a theatricality of affection, even a theatricality of love, can be critically activated to serve life.
This seminar forms part of a tri-annual project that explores the expanded action in new areas: the public sphere, the city, the home, networks of affection, schools and educational spaces. Inhabiting Dispersion is held in collaboration with the project Archives of Affection, in which different artistic proposals approach the archive as a living space of relationships. It culminates als with a programme of critical practices devoted to an investigation into “networks of affection” as a space of theatricality.
In collaboration with
Framework
Imaginarios sociales II: la idea de acción en la sociedad posindustrial. Documentación, teoría y análisis de las artes escénicas contemporáneas (HAR 2011-28767). Plan Nacional de I+D del Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad. Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas
Teatralidades disidentes (HAR2012-34075). Plan Nacional de I+D del Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad. Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha
Organised by
ARTEA and Museo Reina Sofía
Educational program developed with the sponsorship of
Participants
Esther Belvis. A member of ARTEA, researcher, writer and educator with an MA in Theatre and Performance Studies from the University of Warwick and the Autonomous University of Barcelona.
Óscar Cornago. A member of ARTEA. Researcher at the Centro de Ciencias Humanas y Sociales at the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas in Madrid CSIC. In recent years he has coordinated the volumes Utopías de la proximidad en el contexto de la globalización. La creación escénica en Iberoamérica (2010), A veces me pregunto por qué sigo bailando. Prácticas de la intimidad (2012) and Manual de emergencia en prácticas escénicas. Comunidad y economías de la precariedad (2014).
Quim Pujol. Writer, artist and curator. He has participated in research projects such as “Autonomía y complejidad” or "Arte y ciencia ficción" and has collaborated in publications like Artributos, Efímera, Maska or Repensar la dramaturgia. He is co-curator of La estrategia doméstica and the Secció Irregular at the Mercat de les Flors and professor in the Independent Studies Programme at the MACBA.
Fernando Quesada. A member of ARTEA, architect and senior lecturer of architectural projects at the University of Alcalá de Henares (Madrid). Participates at the MA in Arts Practice and Visual Culture at the University. He is author of the books La Caja Mágica. Cuerpo y Escena (2005) and Del cuerpo a la red (2014).
Suely Rolnik. A senior lecturer at the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo, where she runs the Core interdisciplinary studies on subjectivity in the Clinical Psychology Postgraduate course, and honorary professor in the Independent Studies Programme at the MACBA. She is author of Micropolítica. Cartografías del deseo (in collaboration with Félix Guattari, 2006).
José Antonio Sánchez. A lecturer of the History of Art at the University of Castilla La Mancha (UCLM) and director of the MA in Arts Practice and Visual Culture. A member of ARTEA (Madrid). Noteworthy publications include Dramaturgias de la imagen (2002) and Prácticas de lo real en la escena contemporánea (2007).
Students and artists invited to the presentations of projects:
Tamara Ascanio, Marta Battistella, Mike Brookes, Ana Salomé Branco, Paloma Calle, Marie Capesius, Rosa Casado, Joan Casellas, Nieves Correa, Belén Cueto, María José Cifuentes, Circo Interior Bruto, Tatiana Fuentes Sadowski, Óscar G. Villegas, Ana Harcha, Lila Insúa, María Jerez, Bruno Leitao, Rosell Meseguer, Javier Núñez Gasco, Mariona Naudin, Joseph Patricio, Luciana Pereyra Agoff, Huemulita Pitrufkén, Germán de la Riva, Anto Rodríguez and Catarina Simao.
![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
Aesthetics of Peace and Desertion Tactics
8 October 2025 – 24 June 2026
The study group Aesthetics of Peace and Tactics of Desertion: Prefiguring New Pacifisms and Forms of Transitional Justice proposes a rethinking—through both a theoretical-critical and historical-artistic lens—of the intricate network of concepts and practices operating under the notion of pacifism. A term not without contestation and critical tension, pacifism gathers under its name a multiplicity of practices—from anti-militarism and anti-war movements to non-violence activism—while simultaneously opening urgent debates around violence, justice, reparation, and desertion. Here, pacifism is not conceived as a moral doctrine, but as an active form of ethical and political resistance capable of generating aesthetic languages and new positions of social imagination.
Through collective study, the group seeks to update critical debates surrounding the use of violence and non-violence, as well as to explore the conflict of their representation at the core of visual cultures. In a present marked by rearmament, war, genocide, and the collapse of the social contract, this group aims to equip itself with tools to, on one hand, map genealogies and aesthetics of peace—within and beyond the Spanish context—and, on the other, analyze strategies of pacification that have served to neutralize the critical power of peace struggles. Transitional and anti-punitive justice proposals will also be addressed, alongside their intersections with artistic, visual, and cinematic practices. This includes examining historical examples of tribunals and paralegal activisms initiated by artists, and projects where gestures, imaginaries, and vocabularies tied to justice, reparation, memory, and mourning are developed.
It is also crucial to note that the study programme is grounded in ongoing reflection around tactics and concepts drawn, among others, from contemporary and radical Black thought—such as flight, exodus, abolitionism, desertion, and refusal. In other words, strategies and ideas that articulate ways of withdrawing from the mandates of institutions or violent paradigms that must be abandoned or dismantled. From feminist, internationalist, and decolonial perspectives, these concepts have nourished cultural coalitions and positions whose recovery today is urgent in order to prefigure a new pacifism: generative, transformative, and radical.
Aesthetics of Peace and Tactics of Desertion, developed and led by the Museo Reina Sofía’s Studies Management, unfolds through biweekly sessions from October to June. These sessions alternate between theoretical discussions, screenings, work with artworks and archival materials from the Museo’s Collection, reading workshops, and public sessions. The group is structured around sustained methodologies of study, close reading, and collective discussion of thinkers such as Judith Butler, Elsa Dorlin, Juan Albarrán, Rita Segato, Sven Lütticken, Ruth Wilson Gilmore, and Franco “Bifo” Berardi; historical episodes such as the anti-nuclear and anti-arms race movement in Spain; and the work of artists and activists including Rojava Film Commune, Manuel Correa and the Oficina de Investigación Documental (Office for Documentary Investigation), and Jonas Staal, among other initial cases that will expand as the group progresses.
27th Contemporary Art Conservation Conference
Wednesday, 4, and Thursday, 5 March 2026
The 27th Contemporary Art Conservation Conference, organised by the Museo Reina Sofía’s Department of Conservation and Restoration, with the sponsorship of the MAPFRE Foundation, is held on 4 and 5 March 2026. This international encounter sets out to share and debate experience and research, open new channels of study and reflect on conservation and the professional practice of restorers.
This edition will be held with in-person and online attendance formats, occurring simultaneously, via twenty-minute interventions followed by a five-minute Q&A.
Submitting Proposals
The deadline for presenting proposals ends on 28 September 2025. Those interested must send an email to jornada.conservacion@museoreinasofia.es, submitting the following documents:
- An unpublished proposal related to the conservation or restoration of contemporary art.
- A 1,700-word summary, written in Word, on the theme addressed. Please indicate the topic at the top of the document with five keywords and the presentation format (in-person or virtual). Preference will be given to the in-person format.
- CV and contact details.
- Only one proposal per person will be accepted.
- Proposals related to talks given in the last three conferences will not be accepted.
Proposals may be submitted in Spanish, French or English and will be evaluated by a Scientific Committee, which will select the submissions to be presented during these conference days and will determine their possible participation in a subsequent publication, the inclusion of which will undergo a second and definitive evaluation by the Editorial Committee.
For submissions in a virtual format, participants must send a recording following certain technical requirements they will receive once participation is confirmed.
The programme of sessions will be published in the coming days.
Rethinking Guernica
Monday and Sunday - Check times
This guided tour activates the microsite Rethinking Guernica, a research project developed by the Museo Reina Sofía’s Collections Area, Conservation and Restoration Department and the Digital Projects Area of the Editorial Activities Department, assembling around 2,000 documents, interviews and counter-archives related to Pablo Picasso’s painting Guernica (1937).
The visit sets out an in-situ dialogue between the works hung around the painting and a selection of key documents, selected by the Museo’s Education Team and essential to gaining an idea of the picture’s historical background. Therefore, the tour looks to contribute to activating critical thought around this iconic and perpetually represented work and seeks to foster an approach which refreshes our gaze before the painting, thereby establishing a link with the present. Essentially revisiting to rethink Guernica.
UP/ROOTING
11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 NOV 2025
Museo Reina Sofía and MACBA Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA) invite applications for the 2025 iteration of the School of Common Knowledge, which will take place from November 11th to 16th in Madrid and Barcelona.
The School of Common Knowledge (SCK) draws on the network, knowledge and experience of L’Internationale, a confederation of museums, art organizations and universities that strives to reimagine and practice internationalism, solidarity and communality within the cultural field. This year, the SCK program focuses on the contested and dynamic notions of rooting and uprooting in the framework of present —colonial, migrant, situated, and ecological— complexities.
Building on the legacy of the Glossary of Common Knowledge and the current European program Museum of the Commons, the SCK invites participants to reflect on the power of language to shape our understanding of art and society through a co-learning methodology. Its ambition is to be both nomadic and situated, looking at specific cultural and geopolitical situations while exploring their relations and interdependencies with the rest of the world.
In the current context fraught with war and genocide, the criminalization of migration and hyper-identitarianism, concepts such as un/belonging become unstable and in need of collective rethinking:
How can we reframe the sense and practice of belonging away from reductive nationalist paradigms or the violence of displacement? How to critically hold the entanglement of the colonial routes and the cultural roots we are part of? What do we do with the toxic legacies we inherit? And with the emancipatory genealogies and practices that we choose to align with? Can a renewed practice of belonging and coalition-making through affinity be part of a process of dis/identification? What geographies —cultural, artistic, political— do these practices of de/centering, up/rooting, un/belonging and dis/alignment designate?
Departing from these questions, the program consists of a series of visits to situated initiatives (including Museo Situado, Paisanaje and MACBA's Kitchen, to name a few), engagements with the exhibitions and projects on view (Project a Black Planet: The Art and Culture from Panafrica), a keynote lecture by Stefano Harney and Fred Moten, as well as daily reading and discussion gatherings, editorial harvest sessions, and conviviality moments.
Ylia and Marta Pang
Thursday, 6 November - 8pm
The encounter between Spanish DJ and producer Ylia and visual artist Marta Pang is presented in the form of a premiere in the Museo Reina Sofía. Both artists converge from divergent trajectories to give form to a new project conceived specifically for this series, which aims to create new stage projects by setting out from the friction between artists and dialogue between disciplines.