Following the Sun: with Júlia Barbany and Petit Ibèric

Following the Sun is an experimental series of sound and stage performances, presenting nine new sessions by young creative talents. The programme, curated by Carolina Olivares Esturillo, aims to promote the youthful, inexhaustible energy of artists to light up and give new life to Tàpies’ solitary sock that presides over the foundation’s roof terrace.

The first session in the programme is Sala Combo. The Return. Featuring Júlia Barbany and Petit Ibèric, this is sound and performance improvisation. Like when we were in the treehouse as kids. Going into the ‘We’ve lost the ball and we can’t get it back’ loop, the sounds of grrrrrrr. Extended jam session, rambling stage play, upstart concert, the band split. The instruments are heavy—disorganisation is the key. If you want to be a good magician (a real good magician), press the button for the ‘Sock Terrace’ floor and float off in the ritual of nothingness with us. NO HYPE, NO BOMBO, JUST COMBO.

PARTICIPANTS

Júlia Barbany (@juliabarbany). A hybrid performer and stage designer, she situates her work in irony and within the limits of a performance style she calls ‘soft’. The central themes of her work are humour, reflection on performance itself and the aesthetics of failure. She is a member of Las Huecas, a mongrel stage collective in permanent retreat. A graduate of Barcelona’s Institut del Teatre, in 2019 she did the master’s degree in Live Arts and Performance at the University of Helsinki, where she began her career as a performer. She has been artist in residence at El Graner. Her current role there is assistant and art director for outside projects. She performs with the Societat Doctor Alonso company (FIT Cádiz 2024). With Las Huecas she is presenting Sobre l’amistat (Temporada Alta 2023) and is part of the educational team at MACBA, where she runs performance-related workshops.

Petit Ibèric (@petitiberic). After graduating in architecture from the UPC in 2021, he worked in different architecture firms in Barcelona and Paris, where he did the master’s degree in stage design at the École d’architecture de La Villette through the Erasmus programme. In this field he has worked mainly on urban projects for firms like Toyo Ito Architects, URBIMEC and Territoris XLM, but also in 3D rendering studios like Prompt Collective and Mentira Studios, as well as working on small alteration projects as a freelance architect in and around Barcelona.

Outside the architecture field, he has always been involved in music in different formats. From experimental song in personal projects (Petit Ibèric, DJ Temillas and Bimbo Bicasso Corporation, among others) to composing and creating the anthem of the Federation of Planets in the Solar System for the performance conference Official Presentation of the Gadgets for Our Salvation, by Júlia Barbany, and soundtracks for the short films Sincronicidad, by Jordi Clusella, and Calvario, by Lluís Margarit. In the last year he has devoted himself entirely to the world of sound composition and design with bigger projects, setting aside architecture but not forgetting what he has learnt from it.

Programme curated and produced by Carolina Olivares Esturillo

Design: Ana Habash and Ignasi Ayats.
Illustrated by: Eduard Sales

Ticket sales through the Fundació website ant at the box office. Limited capacity.

Link to the full programme.