Independent Studies Programme, 2023 – 2024 Edition

Titled Where are the Oases?, this new edition of the PEI aims to analyse the notion of oasisas a space of ideological resistance and generation of shared knowledge. In a clear allusion to the geographical poetics of Édouard Glissant, in which context is the essence of writing and political action, this PEI is established as an archipelago, networked and decentralised; as a series of self-sufficient and interconnected modules, which expand the Museum’s desire to connect a community that extends beyond the group of face-to-face participants in Barcelona.

Where are the Oases?

9th editon presentation

Where are the Oases?

The conceptual proposal is articulated around the transmission of knowledge and pedagogical formulas that emerge from the intersection between theory, activism and artistic, decolonial, trans-feminist and anti-racist practices. Asking the question Where Are the Oases? means recognising that we are experiencing a process of climate, social and political desertification. We live in an environment that incessantly develops characteristics adverse to life. Neoliberal capitalism and its logic of accumulation through the maximum possible exploitation of natural and human resources is a system that manages death in order to monetise life. The collapse of the environment, the profound public health crisis, the culture of hate and the permanent state of war that define the geopolitics of the present threaten what remains of the promise of a free world and a good life. The next Independent Studies Programme (IEP) will have a conceptual direction shared between Max Jorge Hinderer Cruz, Bolivian-German writer, curator and philosopher, he has been the artistic director of the Akademie der Künste der Welt, Cologne and of the Museo Nacional de Arte (MNA), La Paz, Bolivia; Kader Attia, an artist who grew up between France and Algeria, curator of the 2022 Berlin Biennale and founder of La Colonie, Paris, in 2016; and Elvira Dyangani Ose, Director of MACBA.

Introduction

Programme

The program of the 9th edition proposes a critical reflection on the different editions and formats of the PEI, while maintaining and updating its functions as a tool for learning and institutional critique. The question “Where are the oases?” brings together the contents and formats of this edition, highlighting the exhaustion of a resource extraction system that has nurtured capitalism since its colonial history and its responsibility for the current global, climate, ecological and human crises. The different activities include exploring the spaces for critical freedom that have withstood in art and collective agency based on decolonial thought and practice. The program also seeks to find within its methodologies political tools to react against the growing forms of violence, systemic racism, inequality and control. The program consists of three transversal pillars. The Political Culture Program, led by Max Jorge Hinderer Cruz, The Nomadic Colonie, led by Kader Attia and finally, From Other Institutional Imaginaries, led by Elvira Dyangani Ose together with María Berríos. Each pillar unfolds in interrelation with subjects and conceptual modules whose contents are formulated through the intersection between theory, activism and artistic practice. The program features different formats of varying intensity in PEI OBERT: meetings, conferences, workshops and international seminars open to the public.

Information First Section PEI (pdf in Spanish)

Información Second Section PEI (pdf in Spanish)

With the support of

TRANSVERSAL PILLARS

3 results

Elvira Dyangani Ose talks about “From Other Institutional Imaginaries” (in Spanish)

Max Jorge Hinderer Cruz talks about “The Political Culture Program” (in Spanish)

Kader Attia talks about “The Nomadic Colonie” (in Spanish)

TRANSVERSAL PILLARS

What are the necessary conditions to constitute an institutional imaginary? What mechanisms does history provide us with to build such institutions? What forms of collectivity or togetherness emerge from these processes? In a clear desire to redefine the notion of ‘Museum’, this pillar utilizes a series of case studies to reflect on institutional, para-institutional and collective forms which have taken place, are being gestated and are imagined both inside and outside the West. Processes of ancestral communality, socio-political ritual manifestations, and other formulas of cultural governance serve as tools and starting points for this upcoming institution and its consequent social imaginaries. This pillar is especially related to the participants invited to the modules on Technologies of Emancipation and Methodologies of Collective Creation.

The PCP is a laboratory of thought dedicated to reconsidering and materializing culture as an indispensable tool to contribute to the processes and practices that shape life, economy and politics. It emerged in La Paz in 2019, led by Claudia Pacheco Araoz and Max Jorge Hinderer Cruz. In this updated version at the PEI, the PCP will focus on decolonial practices and discourses through seminars, workshops and collective research, especially related to the modules entitled About the Forms and Decrease, party and culture.

The Nomadic Colonie is a version of La Colonie specifically activated for the PEI. La Colonie is a meeting place to share life skills and knowledge that was created in Paris in 2016. Striving to reflect on how modernity has erased and continues to reduce the interstitial spaces of freedom that we call oases, we planned The Nomadic Colonie to nurture and keep the networks of free thought that bind them together active. This open space for meeting and exchange will bring together teachers of the program, local agents and specific guests, both inside and outside the museum space, to talk through actions and theoretical exchanges, from rational theory to irrational experience. The Nomadic Colonie is developed in internal dialogue with the PEI’s general program, exploring the complex architecture of the natural, cultural, psychological and political environments. The conversations will address the following topics throughout the program: Restitution, Peace and War: The Bandung of the North, Decolonial Ecology, and The oxymorons of reason: mental health and spiritual inheritances. La Colonie nòmada es desenvolupa en diàleg interior amb el programa general del PEI, interpel·lant la complexa arquitectura dels entorns natural, cultural, psicològic i polític. Al llarg de les converses es tractaran els conceptes següents: restitució, pau i guerra: el Bandung del Nord, ecologia descolonial, i els oxímorons de la raó: salut mental i herències espirituals.

CONCEPTUAL MODULES

This module is a proposal to approach what it means to “decolonize art” from a historical review of the forms of production and forms of perception of art from the sixteenth to the twenty-first century. The seminar proposes researching the forms that organize life, production and perception. “About the Forms” understands the perception of art forms as a field of intersection between the forms of production of value and the political forms that regulate the relationship between society and state.

This module explores the interrelationship of culture with economic models: from the neoliberal economic model, in what has been called cognitive capitalism, characterized by the centrality of immaterial dimensions in the processes of accumulation and production of value, to the drift towards post-capitalist forms based on the complexity of information technologies. During the course we will investigate the subversive capacity of other formats and case studies concerning non-speculative economies, artistic and popular proposals, and their responses from other geopolitical positions. The party, understood from the conceptual triad between economy, spirituality and culture, circular economies, ecofeminism, activisms related to the economic decrease and “el vivir sabroso” will all be addressed.

This module brings together three major interdependent lines of work, including the relationships between organisms and environments, and the ways in which they affect the distribution and abundance of their ecosystems. First, we start from political ecology understood as the interrelationship between the resource extraction-based economy and the climate crisis. Second, the consequences on social ecology, the migratory waves resulting from scarcity and war, the right to the city and the condition of citizenship will all be addressed. Third, the course will address how the diversity of subjectivities is redefined in a digital ecosystem, both in terms of control but also of possibility. We will discuss topics ranging from the free circulation of knowledge to the opening to other approaches regarding mental health and spiritual practices.

This module studies the complex theoretical legacy of body politics, as well as its capacity for collective enunciation, in its interrelationship with anti-racist practices, black studies, currents of feminism, queer, trans and crip theory.

This module explores the link between artistic activity and its research and production methodologies, with different forms of activism. Special attention is placed on the forms of collective action, its tools to create platforms and new imaginaries, focusing on case studies that go further than certain notions that are used by artistic and political activists.

Methodology and formats

The PEI returns for a 14-month program, from March 2023 to June 2024, organized in three teaching periods and a final period dedicated to formalizing and presenting personal and collective research. The teaching formats are diverse and flexible, such as single-issue courses, talks, workshops, urban tours, collective reading spaces, celebrations, master classes and international seminars. The PEI Oberts seminars take place every trimester and focus intensely on a specific theme. In addition, other formats such as workshops and courses will have open places for the public and specific local groups. In turn, the museum’s exhibitions and relevant guests from MACBA’s public program serve as case studies and underpin different areas of work in the PEI.

Activities

20 results

Independent Studies Programme, 2023 – 2024 Edition

01 From Other Institutional Imaginaries

02 The Political Culture Program

03 The Nomadic Colonie

01 About the Forms

02 Decrease, party and culture

03 Political ecologies

04 Technologies of emancipation

05 Methodologies of collective creation

DIRECTION

LECTURERS, INVITED GUESTS AND ALLIED AGENTS

TUTORS

PEI TEAM

01 How much time will I need to spend on the PEI?

02 What qualification is awarded at the end? How is it assessed?

03 What is the PEI academic calendar?

04 Costs and accommodation

05 How can I get around in Barcelona?

06 Safety and emergencies

Immigration issues

08 For non-EU students – study visa and other paperwork

09 How do you apply for this permit?

10 Required documentation:

11 For students from the EU

12 Required documentation:

13 Can I work and study on a study visa?