Situation 8. Eugenics at stake: sports, arts and critical thinking

The program “Eugenics at stake: sports, arts and critical thinking”, which accompanies the exhibition series CITISSIMUM ALTISSIMUM FORTISSIMUM will generate a series of contexts and learning situations on curatorial practice from two intersecting lines of approach.
 

On the one hand, taking into account some central concepts that the exhibition intends to bring into play, we will review the technological legacies of eugenic thought and the way in which, through art and critical approaches to sport, it allows us to respond to the problems of race, racism, ableism, the whitening of the nation, the sanitization of urban space and gender norms that plague modern structures and institutions.

On the other hand, drawing on the traditions and epistemologies of anti-colonial and transfeminist self-defense arts, we will exercise ways to challenge classificatory logics, aesthetics, metrics and capitalist drives of competitiveness and spectacle that permeate contemporary societies. In short, we will collectively ask ourselves: What does it imply to dismantle these logics, what techniques of the body and of critique, what practices, spaces and communities should we create to respond to the paradigm of sport and high competition art that is imposed as an aspirational model? 

Program

We will have exchanges with the curatorial team, artists involved in the exhibition cycle and educators of the center. The program is developed in a series of workshops and talks with researchers from various fields, resident artists of the Centre d'Arts Santa Mònica and special guests. 

• Open sessions with thinkers and activists. Helen Torres, Youssef Ouled and Heidi Ramirez will show and share critical perspectives on sport from different knowledge and languages: science and technology studies; anti-racist thought and photography. 

• Sessions with curators, participating artists and special guests in the exhibition cycle.  In these sessions, accompanied by some special guests, they will propose a critical dialogue to unravel and contrast the starting notions of the exhibition, its deployment and the reception of the various audiences. 

• Play and experimentation sessions. We will explore ways to break the paradigm of competition and experiment with body techniques and forms of anti-colonial and transfeminist self-defense. 

• Cultural agenda. In some sessions the program will dialogue with proposals and projects from other spaces in Barcelona. 

Programa coordinat per:

Anyely Marín Cisneros. PhD in History of Science. She researches on the intersection of body politics and science; and she dynamizes training spaces on decolonial methodologies, black feminisms and anti-racist strategies. 

David Yubraham Sánchez. Sociologist, manager and cultural mediator. He has taken part in several cultural, artistic, research, training and communication initiatives from anti-racist and sexual and gender dissidence perspectives and pedagogies.

Who is the target audience?
 

The program is designed for people interested in artistic practices and the processes involved: curatorships, mediations, exhibition cycles, production and critical pedagogies. The objective is to activate situated communities of research and learning.

Places are limited. There are no age, previous qualifications or curriculum requirements. Therefore, interest and commitment to this proposal and to the community involved will be valued.