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Friday, 29 March and 2 April 2019 - 7pm to 9:30pm
Sessions 1 and 2. Mapping Ourselves: Colonisation and Emotional (de)Territory
The first two sessions aim to place the diverse nature of migrant, deterritorialised and racialised identifications through the practices of conversation and the construction of narratives.
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Friday, 26 April and 10 May 2019 - from 7pm to 9:30pm
Sessions 3 and 4. Links and Supports Against Certainty
The second block of sessions explores how the recognition of links and relations of interdependence are produced, and how they are addressed and cultivated through the joyful and melodramatic exploration of affective and activist migrant aesthetics, traversing the ‘migrant struggle’ through the soap opera, music, food, etc.
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Friday, 24 May and 7 June 2019 - 7pm to 9:30pm
Session 5 and 6. Affection in Re-Existence: Towards Shared Living
Session 5 is set up as a ‘talk show’ with guest Hector Acuña/Frau Diamanda, moving towards the (characteristic) rhetoric of the affective migrant and racialised fabrics in re-existence, and towards shared living.
Session 6 focuses on playing and reinventing and is set forth as a loom or collective weft, whereby participants map out their own experiences, making use of different tools and collectively laying out their memories and desires. This encounter is in the mould of a party, a commemoration of our co-existence in Madrid.
Affection in Re-Existence
- Research

Held on 29 mar, 12, 26 abr, 10, 24 may, 07 jun 2019
Affection in Re-Existence constitutes an invitation to encounter the affective pathways that envelop migrant memory in Spain. This participatory and open workshop seeks to contextualise conversations and collective learning from an ethical, critical and situated perspective of black, cross-border and decolonial feminism. Its aim is to politicise the different paradoxes shrouding migrant and/or racialised affectivity, acknowledging re-existence as a daily strategy enabling space and time to be creatively inhabited and developed from the experience of transit, body movements and collective memory that knits together the here and there, according to the idiosyncrasies of living in Madrid.
The workshop’s methodological approach is from participatory research/action, employing elements of popular education and combining them with different tools: some start out from the theories and proposals aligned with the decolonisation of the self and the affective shift of social sciences; others stem from art and enable movement in the vague territory of the inside-outside. These politics of space, affective-physical geography and common colonial memory untangle re-existence, encompassing the multiple intersections between the public and the private. Thus, the aim is to question the Eurocentric values that demarcate emotional aspects as an opposite space of reason and, from this register, reveal the ‘Latin drama’, the tenderness, rage, that which is deemed sentimental, pain, cannibalism and stigmatised subjects in urgency, sweetness, and bitterness shrouding everyday dispossession: food, dance, music (bachata, salsa, huayno, cumbia, etc.) as moments of displacement, from what Enrique Dussel calls the European conquiro (‘I conquer’) ego.
Activity included in the programme
Organised by
Museo Reina Sofía
Affection in Re-Existence is a project developed by the research group Situated Feminisms, associated with the Museo Reina Sofía Study Centre and made up of researchers Elisa Fuenzalida and Jeannette Tineo.
Educational program developed with the sponsorship of

Participants
Designed and conducted by:
Elisa Fuenzalida is a feminist migrant and student in the MA in Advanced Studies in Social and Cultural Anthropology from the Complutense University of Madrid. She coordinates the Museo Reina Sofía Study Centre’s Aníbal Quijano Chair with anthropologist Rita Segato.
Jeannette Tineo Durán has worked in the psychosocial field, and research and teaching in the Dominican Republic, the Caribbean and Latin America, and has professional experience in popular education, and anti-racist and decolonial feminism. She is currently conducting PhD research into Dominican diaspora in Madrid,
With the collaboration of:
Héctor Acuña/Frau Diamanda is a translator, writer, self-taught audiovisual artist, drag performer, independent curator, cultural infector and DJ who has recently finished the 2017–18 Programme of Independent Studies (PEI) at the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Barcelona (MACBA).
Aimed at
People with migrant and/or racialised backgrounds or experiences who are interested in reflecting on their life experiences; activists from different associative-collaborative backgrounds who wish to politicise affection; cross-border people and dissidents of desire, sexuality and identities; people seeking spaces of self-care and healing justice through art and (psycho) drama…
Participant selection
The level of interest in the programme content will be assessed above all else. Although the workshop is designed as a mixed, open space, priority will be given to non-EU migrants and racialised people.
Selected participants will receive a confirmation email on 18 March 2019.
Más actividades
Aesthetics of Peace and Desertion Tactics
8, 22 OCT, 5, 19 NOV, 3, 17, 31 DIC 2025,14, 28 ENE, 11, 25 FEB, 11, 25 MAR, 8, 22 ABR, 6, 20 MAY, 3, 17 JUN 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.
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.
Rethinking Guernica
21, 23, 28, 30, 20, 26, 27 SEP, 5, 7, 12, 14, 19, 21, 26, 28, 3, 4, 10, 11, 17, 18, 24, 25, 31 OCT, 2, 4, 9, 11, 16, 18, 23, 25, 30, 1, 7, 8, 14, 15, 21, 22, 28, 29 NOV, 2, 7, 9, 14, 16, 21, 23, 28, 30, 5, 6, 12, 13, 19, 20, 26, 27 DIC 2024,4, 6, 11, 13, 18, 20, 25, 27, 2, 3, 9, 10, 16, 17, 23, 24, 30, 31 ENE, 1, 3, 8, 10, 15, 17, 22, 24, 6, 7, 13, 14, 20, 21, 27, 28 FEB, 1, 3, 8, 10, 15, 17, 22, 24, 29, 31, 6, 7, 13, 14, 20, 21, 27, 28 MAR, 5, 7, 12, 14, 19, 21, 26, 28, 3, 4, 10, 11, 17, 18, 24, 25 ABR, 3, 5, 10, 12, 17, 19, 24, 26, 31, 1, 2, 8, 9, 15, 16, 22, 23, 29, 30 MAY, 2, 7, 9, 14, 16, 21, 23, 28, 30, 5, 6, 12, 13, 19, 20, 26, 27 JUN, 5, 7, 12, 14, 19, 21, 26, 28, 3, 4, 10, 11, 17, 18, 24, 25, 31 JUL, 2, 4, 9, 11, 16, 18, 23, 25, 30, 1, 7, 8, 14, 15, 21, 22, 28, 29 AGO, 1, 6, 8, 13, 15, 20, 22, 27, 29, 4, 5, 11, 12, 18, 19, 25, 26 SEP, 4, 6, 11, 13, 18, 20, 25, 27, 2, 3, 9, 10, 16, 17, 23, 24, 30 OCT 2025
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.
The (legal) person and the legal form. Chapter I
29 SEP, 2, 6, 9 OCT 2025
As part of the Studies Constellation, the Study Directoship’s annual fellowship, art historian and theorist Sven Lütticken leads the seminar The (Legal) Person and the Legal Form: Theoretical, Artistic, and Activist Commitments to foster dialogue and deepen the hypotheses and questions driving his research project.
This project, titled Unacting Personhood, Deforming Legal Abstraction, explores the dominance of real abstractions—such as exchange value and legal form—over our processes of subjectivation, and asks how artistic practices can open up alternative ways of representing or performing the subject and their legal condition in the contemporary world.
The seminar consists of eight two-hour sessions, divided into three chapters throughout the academic year. While conceived as non-public spaces for discussion and collective work, these sessions complement, nourish, and amplify the public program of the Studies Constellation.
This first chapter of the seminar, composed of four sessions, serves as an introduction to the fundamental issues of the research concerning theoretical, artistic, and activist engagements with the legal form. It includes four sessions dedicated respectively to: the legal form, through the work of French jurist, philosopher, and lawyer Bernard Edelman, with particular attention to his Marxist theory of photography (translated into German by Harun Farocki); the (legal) person, via contributions from Italian philosopher Roberto Esposito, academic, social justice activist, and writer Radha D’Souza, and visual artist Jonas Staal; land, through the work of researcher Brenna Bhandar—specialist in the colonial foundations of modern law and the notion of property—and artist, filmmaker, and researcher Marwa Arsanios; and international law, through the work of British writer China Miéville.
Through these and other readings, case study analyses, and collective discussions, the seminar aims to open a space for critical reflection on the ways in which the law—both juridical form and legal form—is performed and exceeded by artistic and activist practices, as well as by theoretical and political approaches that challenge its foundations and contemporary projections.