Today is Tàpies: Gemma Carbó – Jordi Ferreiro

Aquest event forma part de: Today It’s Tàpies

Organised by the Fundació Antoni Tàpies as part of the Tàpies Centenary Year, Today is Tàpies is a series of transgenerational and interdisciplinary conversations conducted and moderated by the cultural journalist Rita Roig (Terrassa, 1997). The aim is to interpret Tàpies’ texts as a starting point for reflecting on current issues such as ecology, the right to self-determination, interculturality and political commitment in art.

The words and ideas of the artist will be revisited during a series of thirteen sessions, with invited participants from different generations and diverse professional fields (culture, education, science, politics, environment, health and human sciences) helping to construct a polyphonic story that will be collected in the form of a podcast. Thanks to the collaboration of Catalunya Ràdio, the podcast will allow us to experience the generated knowledge in another format and in another context.

Chapter 12: The Coordinates of Artistic Practice and Mediation

Tàpies associated visual culture with a critical spirit. This is why he always argued for an aesthetic education inculcated from early childhood and reaching as much of the population as possible. According to the artist, making the public aesthetically aware was a guarantee of progress, especially if it consisted of a “proper” aesthetic education. This means one that covered everything: “Defending natural landscapes, fighting pollution, against dreadful town planning for ‘profit’, against the din of advertising…” In this conversation, Gemma Carbó and Jordi Ferreiro will be talking about visual culture, democracy, pedagogy and the responsibility of artists and cultural institutions to act as mediators in the media-saturated context in which we live.

PARTICIPANTS

Gemma Carbó is director of the Museum of Rural Life, Catalonia. She is a historian, arts administrator and doctor of education, specialising in the field of cultural and educational policy. She has always taken an interest in connections between the world of culture, education and sustainable development, and argues for culture as an axis for public policy to achieve social change. She is president of the Fundació Interarts, which works in international cultural cooperation, and of the Associació ConArte Internacional for arts in education. She also lectures in teacher training and arts administration at the University of Girona and the UOC, the Catalan open university.

Jordi Ferreiro, artist and educator, sees no distinction between the disciplines in which he works. He combines teaching with artistic practice and arts administration on projects aiming to transform the relationship between artists, the public and museums through participatory structures, entertainment and surprise. Examples of this include choreographed tours, passive performances, interactive audioguides and social sculptures. He also explores out of the ordinary pedagogical situations, affect and meaningful learning and experimental systems of assessment. He is currently the coordinator of education and mediation at Manifesta 15.

Today is Tàpies programme

Podcasts Today is Tàpies, by Catalunya Ràdio.