ITINERANT ACTIONS
Commission / funded project (residency and symposium). 2019
Hangar Barcelona | Curator’s Network (Hablarenarte) Madrid

Itinerant Actions – a fieldwork programme

Itinerant Actions developed a collective fieldwork research programme for Hangar that explored remote outposts, peripatetic practice and the fluidity of site-responsive working. The project invited resident artists at Hangar and cultural agents based in Barcelona to engage in a critical dialogue about embodied knowledge, ecological economies, roaming landscapes and material territory. The project was envisioned as site-responsive and adaptive; and outputs – including a workshop, symposium and film – drew on many aspects of the fieldwork process including conversations between cultural agents, artists, landscapes and actions.

The research explored both the critical dialogue between art and geography through fieldwork and the geographies of artistic practice in the landscape to develop new models of research in peripatetic practice and itinerant working. Fieldwork in artistic practice is an interesting line of research, since preliminary thinking and making are often not documented or omitted from the artist’s final work. This project focuses on how artists come into relation with different contexts: itinerant situations, performative strategies, embodied experiences and geographical locations.

Itinerant Actions was developed through the Temporal School of Experimental Geography (TSOEG.org) and connects with several previous research projects dealing with fieldwork. The project brought together over 100 people to make meaningful connections across all of its activities.

Summary:
Research residency staying at Hangar shared residence house / studio space provision / public programme with workshop, symposium and film / working with artists, cultural agents and remote art centres

Artists:
Paula Bruna
Luce Choules
Patricia Dauder
David Ortiz Juan

With:
Mark Aitken – documentary filmmaker
Rosa Cerarols – cultural geographer
Eulàlia Comas – ecologist
Lala Thorpe – cultural producer and education curator

Project partners:
Lluís Nacenta, Director, Hangar.org, Barcelona, Spain | Marta Gracia, Head of Research Projects, Hangar.org, Barcelona, Spain | Sergi Botella, Coordinator of Activities and Residences, Hangar.org, Barcelona, Spain | Ludovica Michelin, Research Communication, Hangar.org, Barcelona, Spain | Flavia Introzzi, Strategic Partnerships and International Projects Coordinator at Curators’ Network, Madrid, Spain | Georg Zolchow, Project Coordinator at Curators’ Network, Madrid, Spain | Carmen Mateos, International Projects Development and Management at Hablarenarte, Madrid, Spain | Florencia Fergnani, Coordinator of Cultural Activities at Hablarenarte, Madrid, Spain | ARCO Art Fair, Madrid | Matadero, Madrid | AADK (Centro Negra), Blanca, Murcia, Spain | CACiS (Centre d’Art Contemporani i Sostenibilitat), Calders, Barcelona, Spain | El Centre d’Art i Natura de Farrera, Farrera, Pyrenees, Spain | Inland (Campo Adentro), Madrid, Spain.

Keywords:
Environmental Art, Curated Landscapes, Cultural Tourism, Physical/Human Geography, Ecology and Geology, Survey, Fieldwork.

Funded by:
Hangar.org, Hablarenarte (Curators’ Network Madrid), Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte, Sabadell Fundació, Acción Cultural Española

               

       

Link to Hangar Barcelona profile
Link to Curator’s Network Madrid profile
Link to Hangar Barcelona ‘Encura 3 Paratext’ with Marta Gracia
Link to Hangar Barcelona ‘Encura 3 Paratext’ event
Link to Itinerant Actions review on Curator’s Network Madrid
Link to Workshop and Paratext announcement on Ajuntament Barcelona

WORKS

THE ROCK AND THE SEA
Performance / Live Event (projected photographic imagery, poetic script, books, natural objects). 2019

The Rock and the Sea is part of a body of work made at Cap de Creus during a research residency in 2019, and field trips with cultural geographer Rosa Cerarols Ramirez, Universitat Pompeu Fabra. This live performance uses a format of projected imagery, spoken word and literary readings to take an audience on a poetic journey to the rugged geological features of coastal Catalunya in northeast Spain. This work explores the transformation of materials through a physical study of coastal erosion by the tramontana wind and Mediterranean Sea. The work also highlights the presence of landscape furniture in the newly-rewilded site, the cultural constructions that frame the natural environment and the recent history of ruination.

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AFTER-IMAGE
Artist film (digital, running time 07:17). 2019

After-image was filmed on location at Cap de Creus in Catalunya, Spain as part of the Encura #3 research residency in 2019 with Hangar, Barcelona and Curators’ Network, Madrid. The film moves beyond abstract concepts of landscape and environment to explore the enduring material field. The film is about persistence, where natural processes continue – rock becomes smaller rock, becomes compressed, becomes rock, becomes smaller rock, and so on. It has a rhythm played out over millions of years – the single event of geology. This speculative fieldwork imagines a post-human space of the vast future.

Film trailer: vimeo.com/332440070

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Hangar announcement for Encura 3 Paratext event ‘Itinerant Actions’

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Link to Itinerant Actions Field Report PDF