Horizontal revolution. Opening of Encura VI

On Thursday 11 January, the progress of Revolución Horizontal, the first part of Irene Mahugo‘s curatorial research residency at Hangar, as a beneficiary of the Encura VI grant, will be presented. The residency will continue at Casa Velázquez in Madrid until February 2024. The opening of the curatorial research process will be performative and poetic, with the participation of Miriam Ballesi, Antonio Centeno, Asun Pié Balaguer, Stella Rahola Matutes, Milena Rossignoli and Bella Báguena.

Curated by Irene Mahugo, Horizontal Revolution is the result of an interest in designing strategies or methodologies to generate other forms of justification, far from violence or force, proposing in this case the curatorial profile as a necessary link and connection in complex social contexts and realities. It is born from the desire and urgency to create spaces for reflection from a crip time or slow time around rest, creative thinking, artistic practices and the sharing of one’s own experiences and information as strategies of vindication; thus prioritising wellbeing and valuing the accessibility needs of each individual.

A radical form of subversion is proposed, a peaceful disregard for the laws. The apparent gentleness is now the desire to be an island, a horizontal existence. Against the forced transit of life and the constant – upright – walk, to propose the silence of the body or the diversity of rhythms and forms. Because we are aware of the reason of the West, based on the renunciation of the body itself, we refuse to take another step, to think of a disca and fragile becoming.

From my room and from my bed with cotton sheets with floral prints, I dance to alien and futuristic dystopias, impossible pasts and weightless presents: wormholes that swallow me and lose me, funnels through which I fall, footbridges that cancel anthropomorphic frames. I fall vertically down the bridge, picking up the remains of the other bodies I meet. I am a somatic repository of cultural processes and political discourses.

The research process has involved artists, activists and researchers who are in some way crossed by disability, illness, pain, vulnerability and/or accessibility in relation to the artistic and cultural environment. These are presences that highlight the vulnerability of the everyday.

During the research residency, conversations were developed, recorded and transcribed. They will serve as seeds for further reflection on accessibility in the cultural environment, in order to deploy a “survival kit” dedicated to the institution. Some of the questions around these conversations are Can we implement a cryp time in the institution? Do we want to be part of cisheterocentric institutions? If we did, how could we do it? What is the current representation of disca/divergent art and life histories in institutions? And regardless of disability, are we really proposing a non-movement, a rest or a slower doing? How can we fight to ensure that deviance from the norm is not punished (unless it is exploitable)?

On the other hand, the face-to-face meeting will transform these speculations into hybrid formats of artistic and performative representation. On Thursday 11th we will begin at 7pm with a presentation of the ideas and processes we have been working on. We will share plastic and creative experiences around vulnerability, pain, transformation of the body and support. At the end we will dedicate ourselves to a restful and joyful dance, listening to ambient techno that will take us to the comfortable place we desire and dream of, to pleasure as a form of resistance. We will give space to anger, care, longing, rest, isolation, movement, silence, pain, balm… The words we don’t have yet, the words we have and the words we are waiting for.

Practical information
Day: 11 January
Time: 19 h
Place: Sala Ricson, Hangar
Free admission

Accessibility information
Sala Ricson is accessible to wheelchair users.
Accessible and gender-neutral toilets.
The meeting will take place in the presence of a Catalan sign language interpreter, LSC (Associació Inclusivxs).
Do you want to attend and have other access needs that are not listed here? Do not hesitate to contact us at veronica(at)hangar.org.

In collaboration with: