educacion.ca2m@madrid.org

Lots of things happen in the summertime that don’t seem as possible throughout the year: you meet new people, eat more ice cream than allowed, stay out later… Time streeeeeetches out, like when you step on chewing gum with your shoes. When we were little, we may have gotten bored, especially those of us who stayed in the city. There are hours when you can’t go outside unless you want to fry like an egg, and that’s when the maddest ideas are hatched.
How about we mix chocolate and sausage?
Those of us who already have a few summers under our belts are trying to conserve this spirit, and we wonder… what if Madrid’s asphalt turned into the sea? Could an art centre be a shell for a hermit crab? Could the CA2M Museum be a refuge for children in the summer? What about all year round?

On Hermits and Shells aims to turn the museum into a portal to a reality where these ideas may be possible, beginning with constructing our own space for and with children: a coral reef, a giant shell, a summer home… with views of the sea? Hairy walls? No adults?
Then we’ll see if we want to head out to explore our new habitat, leaving a slime trail like snails but in fluorescent colours so we don’t forget our way back and in case we want to invite anyone to enter.

Through performative games, installations and textile sculptures, we’ll also create our own portable homes so we can carry all our wishes and scatter them around the corners, hoping to communicate with other beings, in other spaces, in other seasons… beyond summer.

Massa Salvatge is a work cooperative located in Valencia that imagines, develops and promotes educational and cultural spaces for action, where critical imaginaries are explored in relation to the social issues that affect us. They work from an ‘anti-adult’ perspective of education, art and culture, placing the focus on children’s rights and needs. The group has drawn from the diverse backgrounds, knowledge and expertise of its members, using artistic tools and strategies, cultural mediation and education as their foundation, and they have blended these practices with research and participatory action, cultural management and training.

We are announcing a call for participation to assemble a working group that will engage in different activities with the artist, including inspiring walks, studio tours and the collective creation of a tableau. Over four sessions, we’ll work with the same group of families, exploring and creating together.

We’ll create a tableau made of painted cardboard. It will show the sky and the earth through elements like stars, planets, birds, stones and plants and will be used as a backdrop for the display of a selection of around thirty objects from the collection associated with themes like the landscape, children and play in an exhibition at the museum.

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Spain experienced a regenerationist movement influence by Krausism, which connected landscape, education and identity as symbols of modernity. Unfortunately, the movement was interrupted by the Civil War. The Institución Libre de Enseñanza, founded by Giner de los Ríos, promoted an integral pedagogy based on nature and advocated outdoor learning and observation of the landscape.

The members of the institution stressed the value of the landscape in Spanish culture, inspiring a new aesthetic and educational sensibility. Artists from the Vallecas School, like Maruja Mallo, Benjamín Palencia and Alberto Sánchez, upheld the Castilian landscape as a symbol of renewal; they were opposed to industrialisation and strove to revive the rural. In so doing, the landscape became a symbol that transcended the local to reflect on our identity, merging tradition and modernity.

Inspired by the work of those creators, Antonio Ballester Moreno has designed this participatory activity, and all families are invited to join.

Antonio Ballester Moreno

He views art as an educational gesture, not an expression. Based on this idea, he has examined the landscape and context as part of our own identity and formation. The Institución Libre de Enseñanza and the cultural movements in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries are important referents in his work because of their connection to these ideas.

He has held exhibitions at the Patio Herreriano in Valladolid using the pedagogical archive of the sculptor Ángel Ferrán in conjunction with his own work. He examined the topic of education through play and motor activities at ARTIUM in Vitoria. And he took a historical survey of the artists who participated in the regenerationist movements up to the Vallecas School at the Fundación Cerezales Antonino y Cinia in León. He participated as an artist and curator in the 33rd Sao Paulo Biennial, where he displayed all these ideas based on the continuity between the aesthetic experience and natural life processes, breaking with dualist concepts like art versus popular culture, the aesthetic versus the practical and the artist versus ‘ordinary’ people.

After all, every single one of us, bar none, is creative, and the purpose of all creation is not the pure truth of knowledge per se but simply to improve experience.

PRACTICAL INFORMATION:

The timetable may change, in which case the participants will be informed.

Registrations for families who can attend all four sessions will be prioritised.

Registration begins 7 April via a form on the website.

Regarding age: If there are little ones in your family, they are more than welcome. We’ll try to make sure that they have a good time and that we can share the creation space. However, families with children over the age of six will be prioritised due to the nature of the activity (walks, cutting implements, etc.).

If places become free as the activity proceeds, we will contact people on the waiting list who may still be interested in joining.