Activity
Wednesday 26, Thursday 27 and Friday 28 of June, 2024

Invocations

A programme of spells, incantations and oracles

For this second iteration of Invocations, we will celebrate the summer solstice with a programme of performance, music and live arts exploring the potential of ritual as a catalyst for transformative experiences. Unfolding over three days at the Convent dels Àngels, this programme of spells, incantations and oracles invites us to consider the subversive dimension of forms of knowledge that have been relegated to the margins of modernity. For centuries the Convent dels Àngels was a cloister for Dominican nuns. Its construction dates back to the dawn of colonial modernity, starting in 1562 – in the same year that, across the Atlantic, the Yucatán Cathedral was being erected on Mayan ruins. In July of that year, the Spanish missionary Diego de Landa ordered the incineration of the Mayan codices along with thousands of sacred objects. Epistemicide is a key aspect of the colonial violence that to this day continues to devastate indigenous knowledge and ways of life. According to the chronicles, for eight nights the huge inquisitorial bonfire lit up the sky over Maní. A ritual of purification through fire that ironically resonates with the Mediterranean tradition of the bonfires of San Juan – a vestige of paganism in the heart of Christian Europe.

With her Brindis animista (Animistic Offering), the Puerto Rican artist Chaveli Sifre will create a healing space inside the crypt of the Convent dels Àngels through a ritual offering of seawater and ashes from the bonfires of San Juan. MACBA’s Chapel becomes a stage for resignifications through performance. From the body poetics of Seba Calfuqueo, whose work questions gender binarism through indigenous cosmologies, to a collective card reading session by Gelen Jeleton, through the unpredictable metamorphoses of the choreographer María Jérez, and a special session of MACBA’s Kitchen, in which Llorenç Barber and Marina Monsonís will revisit the sounds and flavours of popular neighbourhoods in danger of disappearing. The programme ends with sonic interventions by Maria W Horn, who will superimpose onto the venue of Convent dels Ángels the acoustics of another architecture of confinement – that of the prison panopticon; and a new live show by Hibotep, a DJ, rapper and artist brought up in Kampala’s underground scene who will present a session of ‘industrial shamanism’ at the museum.