An Uncomfortable Proposal
Sociología Ordinaria Encounters #11
- Seminars and Lectures
![John Baldessari, Prima Facie (Third State): From Aghast to Upset [Prima Facie (tercer estado): de aterrado a disgustado], 2005. Museo Reina Sofía](https://recursos.museoreinasofia.es/styles/small_landscape/public/Actividades/so.jpg.webp)
Held on 19, 20 may 2023
Sociología Ordinaria is a transdisciplinary research group that explores daily knowledge deemed ordinary, superficial or frivolous from a traditional academic and intellectual viewpoint. Over the past decade, its members have sought to render an account of the complexity and relations of power that underlie diverse social and cultural phenomena such as the use of dating apps, language around COVID-19, the world of the cuplé, reality shows, pyjama parties, popstars, TikTokers, club culture, and so on. Their encounters also endeavour to create an open and multi-disciplinary space.
An Uncomfortable Proposal. Sociología Ordinaria Encounters #11 sets out to address discomfort and its correlations and networks of meaning: significations, impressions and feelings, and how they affect us and also orient and disorient us.
Thus, it seeks to treat discomfort as a political, affective, ethical and aesthetic position and situation, and examine it in knowledge, methodological and epistemological research and production. From this perspective, discomfort also operates to indicate or reveal risk and belonging in processes of research, with the understanding that, similar to Isabelle Stengers and Bruno Latour, we must run at least as much risk as the running people, beings, objects and entities that and whom we study. Therefore, there is importance in designing grounded research and modes of participation, in lieu of seeking to look from above and the outside, focusing on the “China in the shoe” as Latour recalls citing John Dewey, following the problem, the trouble, as Donna Haraway advises, and taking the time to pay attention and listen, breaking from resolutive and explicative aspirations.
The programme is articulated around a selection of proposals received through an open call which pursues a transdisciplinary structure, and which aims to provide a diverse and open space with the capacity to house proposals from different disciplines, styles, formats, generations and living situations.
Sociología Ordinaria is a research group from the Complutense University of Madrid’s (UCM) Sociology Department. Formed in 2011, its concerns revolve around developing new research and teaching methodologies that enable sociological imagination to be applied to contemporary daily life. The group seeks to bring to the surface the dense socio-political roots of the ordinary as abject and disdainful categories of the banal, frivolous and superficial, an aspect of social reality which is invisible in dominant academic analysis.
Friday, 19 May 2023
10am Presentation
― Conducted by Sociología Ordinaria and Germán Labrador
10:30am Methodological Unease
Develop-with Malaise. A Proposal of Epistemological and Methodological Repairs Upon Investigating the Malaise of Sexuality
― Conducted by Nerea Velázquez Berrio
Wake Up, Neighbour! They’re Evicting on Your Doorstep!
― Conducted by Mercedes Cortés, Candela Pastoriza and Iraia Pérez
Common Agencies of Feeling-Thinking for Ordinary Discomfort. On the Experimental Workshop of Creation. Stage One: Theatre-Forum
― Conducted by Feliciano Castaño Villar
As Napoleon Said: A Bird in the Hand Is Worth Two in the Bush
― Conducted by Sopa sólida
12pm Break
12:30pm The House of Your (Bad) Dreams
The Room of Little Spears
― Conducted by Gil-Fournier Esquerra
Architecture of Temporary Fixes. Uncomfortable Mediations of Three Collectives that Are Self-Managed to Rethink Care and its Architectures
― Conducted by Tomasz Czepielik
1:15pm Diners of Discomfort
Screw the Way the Cookie Crumbles: Structural Violence at Lunchtime
― Conducted by Sheila Moreno Griñón and Javier Aarón Rubio Lora
Tabled Protocol. Codes of Conduct as Colonial Heritage
― Conducted by Youssef Taki
4pm Bodies that Matter...
Nobody Knows What a Body Can Do ― to Survive
― Conducted by Irene Mahugo Amaro
My Concentric Body
― Conducted by Virginia Rodríguez Herrero and Ruth María Soria
Corporalities that Cause (Us) (Dis)comfort
― Conducted by Irene Calderón Mazzotti
5:15pm... Bodies that Cause Discomfort
Fat Bodies, Uncomfortable Bodies. Reflections Around Fat Studies
― Conducted by Laura Albet Castillejo
Alianza Diska-Gorde
― Conducted by Itxi Guerra and Laura Castro
Saturday, 20 May 2023
10am Artefacts of (Dis)comfort
By the Skin of Our Teeth! Tasteful Minoxidil Does Sting
― Conducted by Elena Urieta Bastardés, Guillermo José Jurado Villacañas and Biel Navarro López
From Bicycle Pump to Mifepristone. Malaise, Criminalisation and Feminist Resistance in the Voluntary Termination of Pregnancy (A Story)
― Conducted by Carmen Romero Bachiller
10:45am Gestations
BetaBlastoCuir and Communities of Ice
― Conducted by Ona Bros
Markets Formed by People: Discomfort as a Changing Constant in the Study of Fertility Clinics
― Conducted by Sara Lafuente Funes
11:30am Break
12pm Uncomfortable Men
Discomfort, Risk and Desire Between Men Who Have Sex with Men
― Conducted by Kerman Calvo and Ignacio de Loyola González Salgado
Uncomfortable Youth Masculinities. Confusions and Threats Perceived Before the Shattering of Traditional Values
― Conducted by Stribor Kuric Kardelis
Fluid Gender in a Gym
― Conducted by Enrico Mora
1:15pm Female Malaise
The Experience of Academic Writing Groups with Women: The Power of Sharing the Discomfort of Being a Woman at University
― Conducted by Nadia Hakim-Fernández
Grey’s Anatomy: The Discomfort in a Lack of Representation of “Women’s Legacies” Found in Ordinary Aspects of a TV Series
― Conducted by Jocelina Laura De Carvalho Segato
4pm Stage Discomfort
Subnopop as a Strategy of Discomfort
― Conducted by José-Luis Anta Félez and Almudena García Manso
Precarity and Performativity in Contemporary Film: Subjectivity in Dance in Ema (Pablo Larraín, 2019) and Ya no estoy aquí (Fernando Frias, 2019)
― Conducted by Ana Sedeño Valdellos
Failures, Frauds and Other Frictions. Collective Authorship as Resistance
― Conducted by colectivo [intervalos]: Loreto Ares, Kiar Ciotoli, Irene Blanco, Gema Marín, Lara E. Marty and Marta Plaza
5:30pm Like Crazy: Malaise and Mental Health
What Happens to My Mental Health When I Study Mental Health?
― Conducted by Inés Bueno Pascual and Georgiana Livia Cruceanu
Going Crazy: Displacements of Discomfort and Managing Malaise
― Conducted by Rosa Jiménez Pereda and Vega Pérez-Chirinos
Organised by
Museo Reina Sofía and the research group Sociología Ordinaria - Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM)
Inside the framework of
Connective Tissue. The Museo Reina Sofía’s Study Programme: Critical Node, Critical Sociology and TIZ 9. Relational Ecologies
![Dara Birnbaum, Technology/Transformation: Wonder Woman [Tecnología/Transformación: la mujer maravilla], 1978-1979. Museo Reina Sofía](https://recursos.museoreinasofia.es/styles/small_landscape/public/Actividades/wonder.jpg.webp)
![Miguel Brieva, ilustración de la novela infantil Manuela y los Cakirukos (Reservoir Books, 2022) [izquierda] y Cibeles no conduzcas, 2023 [derecha]. Cortesía del artista](https://recursos.museoreinasofia.es/styles/small_landscape/public/Actividades/ecologias_del_deseo_utopico.jpg.webp)
![Ángel Alonso, Charbon [Carbón], 1964. Museo Reina Sofía](https://recursos.museoreinasofia.es/styles/small_landscape/public/Actividades/perspectivas_ecoambientales.jpg.webp)
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.
![Francesc Abad, Procés transformació [Proceso transformación, 1972]. Museo Reina Sofía](https://recursos.museoreinasofia.es/styles/small_landscape/public/Actividades/AD05219-009-actividad.jpg.webp)
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.