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EXHIBITION TRANSPERIPHERIES
Territories and artistic residencies
From May 11 until July 13 2023
Castell de Montjuïc
, Barcelona

Transperiphery is a concept and, at the same time a conceptual strategy, which lends unity and coherence to the various nodes which participated in the network of residencies carried out within the projects Art ⇆ Territori (2019-2020) and REART ⇆ (2022-2023). These nodes were Idensitat, La Escocesa, Casa Planas and BBB art centre, connected together to lend shape to these two projects.

Transperipheries presents an exhibition that opens with a guided visit with the artists and entities on May 11 at 6:00 p.m., which includes a heterogeneous group of artistic works that, taken as a whole, respond to the concept of transperiphery. Corentine Le Mestre, Marta Azparren, Melisa López, Josephine Lunal, Lourdes Peñaranda, Maria Alcaide and Célin Jiang, have developed their artworks within the framework of Art ⇆ Territory and REART ⇆; artworks resulting from artistic research conducted in specific local contexts, proposed by Idensitat (web), La Escocesa (Barcelona), BBB art centre (Toulouse) and Casa Planas (Palma); complemented by two laboratories and a digital archive of projects.

Each project provides its own response to the concept of transperiphery; from the archive image (Le Mestre); from the vegetal world of the urban ecosystem (López); from the creative community that gives new life to the industrial past of her residency space (Azparren); with skin and the materiality of text (Lunal); with spatio-temporal contiguities through photography (Peñaranda); with temporal mobility and the displacement of comfort zones (Alcaide); or with digitised lives and the virtuality of emotions as an extension of the capitalist system (Jiang). The concept of transperiphery is reflected in a process open to the exploration of new ways of inhabiting places of artistic residence and production, new ways of connecting with various elements within a local context. A concept which has become plural and which, for this reason, lends its name to the exhibition from this diverse perspective; a concept which is not exhausted.

As a concept, it refers to the idea of traversing, overflowing, deactivating or multiplying the between the centre and the periphery, in order to project it beyond what lies inside or outside this polarised relationship. It takes into consideration the global context, characterised by the rise of tensions related to the fear of the other and of the unknown, the increase in policies of withdrawal, of national affirmation and of the redefinition of borders, and the consequent tendency to provoke isolation, noncommunication, enclosure, the struggle for identity or disconnection. It starts from the assumption that these kinds of reactions and consequences contribute to a polarisation of the relationship between the centre, understood as a predictable space of control and of power, and the periphery, as a space of uncertainty, of a lack of control and also a space in which action becomes possible. Likewise, The project’s residency spaces are aware of their location and their transperipheral positioning, both in terms of the urban context and the artistic practices they promote. The temporary residencies represented an opportunity to re-examine this concept, expand it, displace it and relate it to the specificity of the place, time and speed at which everything happens. When centres are constantly mutating and reproducing themselves, and the peripheries appear around them as alternatives and places of possibility, transperiphery would represent the relationship promoted between various spaces of possibility, and the subversive relationship which is established with centres when they assert their control, their need to oversee and their power struggles.

Transperifèries brings together and presents in exhibition format the work of seven artists, as well as activities carried out in parallel with the residencies, and audiovisual archives generated during the process.


MORE INFORMATION ABOUT Art ⇆ Territori (2019-2020) and REART ⇆ (2022-2023). 

With the works of:
Diario de fábrica / MARTA AZPARREN
La Escocesa

An audiovisual project which examines the imprint of industrial labour on artistic activity by crossing Roberto Rossellini’s perspective in "Europa' 51" with the thought of Simone Weil and her description of Fordist labour in "Factory Diary". During her residency at La Escocesa, Marta interviewed a number of artists in residence and former workers in the old factory space. Both recounted their work in relation to two different activities which lend. and which once lent, meaning to the factory space, namely creative production and textile production. The repetitive gestures derived from a gestural reproduction of their work form part of the audiovisual piece, which was presented in the format of a performative projection within La Escocesa itself. http://www.martaazparren.es/

Missing Edge / CORENTINE LE MESTRE
Casa Planas

Missing Edge deals with the concept of transperiphery applied directly to the analysis and reading of images. In photography, this term would translate the idea of a fluid image that can be traversed, implying that there is a centre to the image, a rootedness and a territorial interconnection. Le Mestre conducted her research in Casa Planas’s archive of postcard images, where plants of exotic origin appear around the borders of the pictures. She takes as her starting points the physical location of the Casa Planas archive and the analysis of the photographic image, and from there, she explores the effects of these images on the real environment. She addresses a dual reflection, upon the relationship between the imaginary and the construction of landscape, while also considering the commercial distribution of images and plants, both synonymous with a globalised circulation. An analysis of identity through the study of plants, their representation in the framework of the tourist industry and the configuration of a landscape. https://corentinelemestre.wixsite.com/corentinelemestre

Possibilities of being a cabin / MELISA LÓPEZ
Le BBB centre d’art

The concept of a cabin automatically evokes the possibility of creating and inhabiting a place, the possibility of protection and isolation. For the project, Melisa travelled around the city of Toulouse, mapping the relationships between plants and the urban spaces which they occupy. Starting out from Le BBB centre d'art, she posited another way to map the urban area, through routes based on spaces of plant life, inverting the centre/periphery logic by defining multiple centres connected by multiple plant species. Traversing, indicating and highlighting these existing territorial interconnections becomes a metaphor for the transperiphery, with the possibility of being a cabin to preserve, give life to and to create places where different species of life cohabit. https://melisalopez.es/

Texo / JOSEPHINE LUNAL
La Escocesa

Text and textile come from the same Latin word, "texo". This common etymology indicates that to conceive a text is to create tension among various threads, and to interweave them. Josephine compares this to the work of the artist, assembling concepts and materials. Through this project, she reflects upon the processes of creation which combine materiality and conceptuality, typical of the artist's work. During her residency, Josephine has used three materials; text, bioplastic and ceramics. Combining and creating interactions between them, she has conducted her research, relating the transperiphery with the skin: "the skin being our own periphery and at the same time a porous system". https://josephinelunal.wixsite.com/portfolio

Contigüidades/ LOURDES PEÑARANDA
Casa Planas

Lourdes’s project “Stereoscopic periphery” investigates spatio-temporal contiguities, to the level of three-dimensional illusions. In her case, the periphery becomes a continuous and common centre, an oscillating coexistence shared among times, shapes, colours and characters through the use of stereoscopic viewfinders. During her process, she has compared photos from the past with more recent photos, seeking and achieving contiguities between several of them. Faced with this parity of images, Casa Planas suggested the use of stereoscopic devices, which form part of its collection and archive (Taxiphotes). Thus, the creative process consisted of finding this contiguous space in the landscape in order to construct or recreate new topographies, new landscapes formed by crossing images that belong to two different time periods. https://www.lourdespenarandaestudio.com/

I've left so many times I don't know if I'm going forwards or backwards. / María Alcaide
Idensitat

Maria used the theme of the transperiphery to explore the experience of all those who have had to move from their zone of care in order to earn a day's wage (just as their grandparents used to do, or their great-great-grandparents before them). Her project sèaks to all those who left, who arrived at, or who always occupy peripheral spaces, no matter what their artistic sector is. The aim was to discuss precariousness from a realistic point of view, but with the desire to share a few suggestions, to find spaces, texts, references and genealogies, and to construct from there a common history to support each other. The theme of the periphery is present in the idea of "living a periphery in movement". https://mariaalcaide.com/

My Best Emotions — Hard-discount of (#self ) Love / Célin Jiang
Idensitat

Bisou Magique 茜茜 is a virtual human, moulded from the artist's features. She lives online, moves around incessantly, interacts with her audience, to find her happiness in the supermarket of love. Célin's work starts by considering the role of the digitisation of our everyday lives as a place for new forms of expression, of participation, of understanding the environment, and of finding ourselves, as positive aspects; also considering, from the total capitalisation of the internet, the increase of oversight, of surveillance, and the waste of data. Researching and collecting various data from internet users, my best emotions recreates a virtual sphere of activity in which the artist interviews, meets and converses with various people, investigating to what extent it is possible to generate love, empathy, hate in a user who not only remains unseen, but of whom it is uncertain whether or not they are real. The artist herself uses an avatar and filters, which represent those privileges that are used to change the original organic being. In a space between play and speculation, a simulation of real life in which everything is self-consumed, using a scientific methodology in which all data are collected, from the hours of use of the app, to messages and responses, ages, places of origin, etc. https://www.instagram.com/bis0u.magiqu3/


Visit with artists. 11.05.2023

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ART ⇆ TERRITORI and REART ⇆  are projects articulated as a network of residencies aimed at supporting research and artistic production collaboratively promoted by Idensitat, Casa Planas (Palma), La Escocesa (Barcelona) and Le BBB centre d’art (Toulouse). 

ARTISTS
Corentine Le Mestre, Marta Azparren, Melisa López, Josephine Lunal, Lourdes Peñaranda, Maria Alcaide i Célin Jiang
EXHIBITION DESIGN
Idensitat, La Escocesa, Casa Planas
Alba Feito, Irati Irulegi, Alba Colomo, Albert Gironès, Ramon Parramon, Roser Colomar, Anna Recasens, Alelí Mirelman
GRAPHIC DESIGN
Silvia Renda (Radial Radiant)
TYPOGRAPHY
Clémence Fontaine, Théo Guillard
EXHIBITION SET-UP
Marta Archiles 
VÍDEO
Idensitat

Supported by
Ministerio de Cultura y Deporte, Generalitat de Catalunya, Ajuntament de Barcelona, Castell de Montjuïc.

LOGOS VIDEO TRANSPERIFERIES 2023