Anyone interested

We make a collage. We cut things out. We stick them down. We choose. There are always pieces left over—scattered, discarded, excluded, set aside. Pieces that have no place in what we are doing, in the main work.

Fragments of an image that might have been, but never was. TO CUT OUT IS TO REJECT. Even the idea itself can be dismissed. We peer in, we look, and there it is: what seemed to have no use, until a clearing opens up in the woods. Now we know what we can do with it. We want to see what was rejected come back to life! We discover that being rejected or ruled out does not mean being waste; these pieces have simply been waiting to take on new meaning: to make visible the invisible—the hidden work, the hours lived, the thoughts harboured, the traces of what was not seen.

We spend our lives making decisions, choosing a path. Along the way, we meet other travellers and weave a network as we wander and meander through shared experience. But what about the paths we leave behind? Aren’t we defined as much by what we choose as by what we reject? Can we allow ourselves to retrace our steps?

Now that we are looking back, let’s give ourselves another chance. Not just to dream, but to act, and to rethink what we have experienced from a different perspective. We know that choosing means giving something up, and we don’t want to.

We want the margins, the pieces waiting in the wings and our gatherings for discussion. We want to keep walking, but steer clear of straight lines, beginnings and endings. We choose, yes, but knowing that whatever we leave behind today can be reconsidered tomorrow. We come together, rejected or not. We grow stronger by being and growing together. We want to make a beautiful collage where once there were only discarded pieces.

A collage that is always unfinished.

Las Hijas de Yocasta

• The Reading Group is an independent research group initiated by the collective Las Hijas de Yocasta. It has become a regular fixture in the life of Museo CA2M. A place to stop, read, talk and collectively explore other ways of relating to ideas, texts, people and the institution itself.
• Every two weeks, the group comes together to share readings, raise questions, exchange experiences and think about ways of being, doing and building together.
• Participation is free and open to all. No previous knowledge is required—only curiosity, a willingness to share and a desire to be part of a community of learning and research.

PROGRAMME: 22 October / 12 November / 26 November / 10 December

Las Hijas de Yocasta 

Who are we? We are Las Hijas de Yocasta

We call ourselves Las Hijas de Yocasta because we like the name, because we are all daughters, and because Jocasta was Oedipus’s mother (and his wife), who caused him so much grief (and pleasure). We found the perfect excuse for the name in Christiane Olivier’s book Jocasta’s Children and made it our own. It’s ours. Four daughters. We are the resistance of Museo CA2M’s reading groups. But we’ve become more than where we started: we have a voice of our own now. Brought together by our love of talking and talking, and of endlessly turning things over, looking at everything from every possible angle.

Following the enthusiastic response to the spring edition, this autumn Museo CA2M returns with another edition of its long-running introduction to contemporary art, But… Is This Art?, with a new series of morning sessions. Designed as a space for exploring art through curiosity, dialogue and shared experience, the course draws on the spirit of the popular universities.

It is open to anyone who has ever stopped in front of an artwork and found themselves asking precisely that question: “But… is this art?” Over four sessions, we will explore some of the questions, ideas and experiences that can help us engage with contemporary art, discover some of the keys to understanding it and recognise how it is intertwined with our everyday lives.

For this edition, members of the Museo CA2M team will share the artworks, readings, encounters and experiences that have profoundly shaped their relationship with art—those that, at some point, changed the way they saw things, prompted a question or left a lasting impression. Each session will begin from a personal perspective before opening out into broader conversations about the ways in which art accompanies us, challenges us and helps us think about the world.

Over the years, the course has fostered a community around the museum, bringing together people from a wide range of backgrounds and with diverse interests who find here a space to think together. Each gathering thus becomes an open conversation in which questions circulate, experiences intersect and every voice brings a unique perspective. Taking part in the course means becoming part of this living space, where we learn from artworks and ideas, as well as by listening to one another.

The sessions will combine presentations of materials and ideas with opportunities for group discussion, encouraging an approach to contemporary art based on exchange, reflection and the collective construction of meaning.

A course for discovering art through the questions that move us, sharing ways of seeing, and together, continuing to build a learning community around the museum.

PROGRAMME:

• 20 October: Vanessa Pollán. Head of Communications, Museo CA2M
• 27 October: Estrella Serrano. Head of Education and Public Activities, Museo CA2M
• 3 November: Gema Bayón, Ignacio Macua, María Teresa Bogajo. Exhibitions and Publications Department, Museo CA2M
• 10 November: Ana Ballesteros. Deputy Director, Museo CA2M

The Real Ballet of the Museo CA2M was officially established on 20 June 2026, in Móstoles. Comprising some 27 dancing bodies, with no distinctions made on the basis of age, body or health, and based at the Museo Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo of the Community of Madrid, the company takes dance as its primary—but by no means exclusive—language. The world, its people and its spaces become stages on which to celebrate encounters, crossings and contagions.

We take note of its journey so far and announce its continuation, in the hope of expanding the horizons of the here and now, awaken new possibilities and discover collective ways of dancing that revolutionise reality.

If you are over 16 and would like to be part of a community that comes together around dance and performance practices; if you are open-minded about what dance and dancing can—or cannot—be; if you want to experiment with and explore the richness of movement, whether in the street or on stage; and if you are not afraid to be seen trying out new things you have not quite mastered… then the Real Ballet of the Museo CA2M is your dance company!

PLEASE NOTE: The group is currently full. If any places become available, they will be announced on this webpage.

Oihana Altube is a dancer and artist whose practice occupies the margins between dance, live arts and psycho-physical (therapeutic) practices. Her work explores dancing as a force for personal and social transformation and draws on academic dance.

Javier Vaquero is a choreographer, cultural manager and teacher with an international career in contemporary dance and transdisciplinary creation. Her work explores the body as a site of knowledge, resonance and narrative, investigating the relationships between movement, language and identity from a queer and situated perspective.

DATES

• 24 October 
• 7 and 21 November
• 12 and 19 December
• 16 and 30 January
• 13 and 27 February
• 13 March
• 3, 10 and 24 April
• 8, 22 and 29 May
• 12 June    

Estos son algunos de los rastros que han quedado del proceso de constitución del Real Ballet del Museo CA2M a lo largo de los meses que van entre enero a junio 2026:

Real: cuerpazos de baile: vidas reales

El Museo como casa: un museo “pista de baile” y su comunidad de vecinas

Comunidad de “grupo”, 

no comunidad de comunidad autónoma

En las pausas: mandarinas y galletas príncipe. Un cigarrillo

En las prácticas: ¡cuidado con el hámster!

Escoge a una persona y síguela 

¿pero que esté viva o muerta?

• La fisicalidad del otro / abrirse a otros cuerpos.
• El asombro.
• Las presentaciones ayudan.
• Bailar entre ellas: joven / mayor.
• Conexión, tacto.
• No hay cansancio.
• Es desconocido ¿Qué queréis de nosotras?
• ¿Hasta dónde vamos a llegar?
• Personas juntas pero diversas.
• Percibir la abertura. Que el cuerpo se expanda.
• Conocer gente nueva.
• Estar conmigo y estar con otros.

Mi piel

La piel de las cosas

El espacio entre las pieles

El espacio es piel

¿Cómo es ver desde las manos?

viento / algas / mono / alegría / rojo / Dorothy Iannone

¿Cómo se convierte tu cuerpo en la obra?

historia / poderío / púbico / misterio / identidad / juego / estrellas / brilli-brilli / independencia / 

fortaleza / vulvas / placer / colorido / misterio / fraternidad / rompedora / libertad / emoción /

sentado / erotismo / curiosidad / imaginación / fuerza / cooperativismo / camastro / vivos / pasado

Every Friday morning, a group of people comes together at the museum around a simple excuse: tending a garden. But, as with the best excuses, it is about much more than the plants.

The garden is a place to learn, share experiences and pay attention to what needs care in order to grow. Sometimes the conversation turns to seeds, cuttings or how to rescue a plant that seems to be having a hard time. Other times, people swap tips, kefir recipes, questions and ideas, or simply share the desire to do things in the company of others. Participants look after the garden on the museum terrace, observing the changing seasons and rising to the challenges each one brings. When the irrigation system fails, pests arrive or the soil dries out too quickly, there is always someone with experience to share or a helping hand to offer. There are also worms to feed, seedlings to start, soil to improve and visitors to welcome when they come to find out more about the project. If the garden teaches us anything, it is that many of the things that matter take time, attention and care.

The museum garden is a place where very different people, experiences, forms of knowledge and ways of doing things can coexist. It is a space that leaves room for the unexpected, where not everything goes according to plan. Sometimes shoots appear where no one expected them; at others, it is ideas, lessons learnt or chance encounters that end up taking root.

You can join the sessions at any point during the academic year. On Friday mornings, you might find the group gathered in the library, working in the raised beds on the terrace or perhaps visiting somewhere that inspires them to keep learning. We look forward to seeing you.

One Thursday afternoon a month, we come together around a shared fascination: the moving image. Sometimes the excuse is to pick up a camera. Other times, it is to talk about the latest film we have seen, or that scene that suddenly comes back to us because someone said something that brings it to mind. Through conversations, screenings and hurried notes scribbled in a notebook, we gather ideas, questions and discoveries that seem too important to let slip away. Some quickly find their form; others need more time, resurfacing when we least expect them.

This group is a space for thinking collectively about film and education. We share references, develop ideas and put our intuitions to the test. We often bring along ideas we would like to try out in our classrooms or educational projects, looking for a space where we can experiment with them before putting them into practice. We also find time to produce our own audiovisual work, something that is not always easy amid classes, meetings and assessments.  

Because sometimes we need to stop, look and return to what continues to spark our curiosity: images and stories. Within the group, ideas circulate through conversations, films, readings and shared experiences. As in cinema, we work at different tempos: some ideas take shape straight away, while others need to wait, mature and find the right moment to reemerge. Throughout the academic year, we will invite artists and filmmakers to share their creative processes, introduce us to different ways of working and open up new conversations.

You can join the group at any point during the academic year. Fill in the form and we will let you know about upcoming sessions. If you are interested in film, audiovisual creation or the educational possibilities of the moving image, this is the place for you.

What is the relationship between art and incarceration? What role does culture play within a closed institution? What impact does it have? Is the cultural offer in prisons adequate? Do men and women have equal access to culture behind bars?

La Casa Encendida, Museo Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo and the association teta & teta present Envisioning Freedom: Art and Incarceration, a gathering dedicated to reflecting on the role of literature and art in prisons. Over the course of two days and in two different venues, the event invites participants to consider the importance of culture in prisons—closed, isolated and often forgotten institutions, especially where women are concerned.

On 24 June, La Casa Encendida will host a day dedicated A las Olvidadas (To the Forgotten Women), an initiative led by the association teta & teta that collects books donated and dedicated by members of the public, in an attempt to raise awareness of the situation of women in prison and reflect on female incarceration through literature. The full programme is available here.

The 25 June programme at Museo CA2M will revolve around COSMORAMA, an innovative initiative launched by the museum in 2024 in collaboration with the NGO Solidarios para el Desarrollo. Through Cosmorama, Museo CA2M has organised a range of activities—drawing competitions, training courses, workshops and talks—that explore new forms of participation and connection, turning prisons into spaces for experimenting and producing shared knowledge through collective practice and experience.

Over the past year, and with the support of Fundación Sabadell, a range of educational initiatives have been developed at Madrid V Prison (Soto del Real), which even houses an exhibition space bearing the programme’s name where works and projects created by inmates are displayed, challenging conventional ideas about the limits of art and its audiences.

The COSMORAMA Forum at Museo CA2M aims to serve as a space for sharing and reflecting on the experiences generated in the course of the Cosmorama programme, and also as an opportunity to collectively consider the role of art and culture as agents of change within prison institutions: what has already been achieved, the possibilities they offer and the challenges that remain.

PROGRAMME:

10.30: Opening presentation of the COSMORAMA Forum 

11.00: Opening talk by Pastora Filigrana

12.30: Experiences panel: Clemente Bernad, Antonio Ballester Moreno and Fátima Moreno

Break

16.00: Conversation between inmates from Madrid V Prison (Soto del Real), Álvaro Crespo and Tania Pardo

17.00: Experiences panel: Álvaro Perdices, Marina Roca and Taxio Ardanaz

18.00: Experiences panel: Elena Rosauro Ruiz, Amelia Repetto and Lidia Amalia Mateo

19.00: Collection of letters for people deprived of their liberty

Throughout the day, the artist Quique Palomo will create an illustrated chronicle of the event.

Organised in conjunction with:

In collaboration with:                    With the support of: