elenablesacabez

My name is Elena, I am a researcher, artist and cultural mediator based in Barcelona, Spain.

My professional career is situated between pedagogy and artistic production. My research, mainly conducted from collective methodologies and dialectical practice, focuses on common strategies adopted from contemporary art to rethink the concept of citizenship in the Mediterranean. For the last year, as part of my thesis, I have been working on transnational self-organized platforms on mutual aid and education to re-think how to
assemble in a post-pandemic context.

I am part of Espècies invasores and Frente Sudaka, both artistic and curatorial research collectives and I am collaborating with the Institute of Radical Imagination.

Una conversa indisciplinada [An undisciplined talk]

Una conversa indisciplinada [An undisciplined talk], is a proposal that arises from the desire to create a space for debate and reflection to interrogate current forms of knowledge, to build a critical apparatus that allows us to relate to our environment, completely modified after the appearance of COVID-19.

The new forms of knowledge generation go through dismantling the hegemony of the hypermasculinized genius discourse and opening the gaze towards a new network of decentralized and interdependent knowledge, a transversal, participatory and experimental one. My aim is to de-hierarchize the relationships between theoretical and practical knowledge, opening this project to something more experimental in its forms.

The first step is to create a periodic study group -in the broadest sense of the word-, a Temporary Autonomous Zone, open to Sant Andreu Contemporani neighborhood, a cultural space from Sant Andreu’s district (Barcelona).

In our first meeting, under the title of Prácticas curiosas para explorar y fabular el mundo/Curious practices to explore and fable the world), Guille Mongan, an Argentinian art historian who uses drawing as an archiving and learning tool, invited all of us to share an image that "worked" as a landscape of the present, a text that "vibrates" the present, an ancient abandoned knowledge in the present (in whatever format they wish) and a present problem that is projected into the future.

This shared moment of interaction, discussion, collective thinking/doing was used to create a visual narrative conceived as a “string game”. We took this as a “baton” that led us to our second meeting, with Bernardita Croxatto, a Chilean artist whose practice is a continuous investigation of the body as a medium and support in the visual arts. Her latest proposals focus on the power of gesture and orality, to recover or create other ways of producing and transferring knowledge.

At the moment we are sending some little objects to all the people, to recover physical contact in these strange times. Our proposal is to articulate a story (fabulation, speculative narration, sypoesis) from this silent object but loaded with history.

Note that the aim is to invite people to experience "other ways of learning" and sharing and circulating knowledge and affects. This project has been conceived as an ongoing dialoge, as an experience based on trust and intimacy, so, no pictures or recordings of the meetings have been taken.

- a moment of realisation, change and/or disruption
The Spanish word for “baton”, a stick passed from one runner to another in a relay race, is “posta”, directly connected to the English word “post”. In the last month, Una conversa indisciplinada was re-configured as an online project, but, how “to hack” the logics of social distance when being forced to “connect” online?

- a moment of connection
The orizuru (折鶴), or paper crane, is a design that is considered to be the most classic of all Japanese origami. It is often used as a ceremonial wrapper or restaurant table decoration. Sharing a meal, doing with our hands, talking while walking… and other ways of collective learning by doing.

- any tools / methods / resources to share
As the Spanish philosopher Marina Garcés explains, it is important to focus on our shared condition of being apprentices to reimagine the dynamics between what we "know", and what we "still don’t know" to build a critical apparatus that allows us to interconnect with our environment and community.

- a question you are left with
How to sustain the energy and contact with the community created under this dramatic situation? The pandemic has put online interaction at the center, but what will happen to all the social ties created once we can return to our "old normality"?

- something you will carry forward
Una Conversa Indisciplinada is an open process that still continues, mutating and taking new forms to adapt to the situation. Although the idea of temporality and nomadity is key to the project, I am interested in seeing how to sustain the dialogue by weaving together the different encounters with the different people involved.