Bienvenid* a la musea
“We’ve heard all about the sticks, lanzas y espadas, los objetos que golpean, pinchan and hit with, the long, hard things, pero no n’hem sentit a parlar de la cosa per posar-hi coses dins, the container for the thing contained. Before the tool that forces energy outward, we made the tool that brings energy home”
Ursula K. Le Guin, The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction, 1989
emerged as a collaborative project and un programa pública experimental in Barcelona, Spain in November 2017. The programme took place in espacios diferentes intentó imaginar ‘el museo’ as ‘la musea’, desde una practica transfeminista. Moving between a domestic space, a museum and a space que aún se está formando, we collectively imagined a nuevo institucional and how she - or maybe ‘she’ is a ‘we’, or a ‘they’ or an ‘us’ - operates, moves, sounds, feels, opens . . . . .
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this is a site to share the materials and methods we are gathering in la musea. To imagine una institución museística como una institución femenina, basada en multiple ejes: hospitality, collaboration, care, embodied knowledges, practice, friendship, economics, administration.... Esta posibilidad de ficción is to help us to feel and think different ways to work and move in cultural (and other) institutions.
La musea abre solo cuando sus habitantes pueden visitarla, está absolutamente enmarañada, intrincada con la vida de sus visitantes. She adjusts to our movements and our lives, porque musea es un museo entendido como un programa público y no como un espacio físico. She moves to where we need her to be. She has a structure but she doesn’t bend to expectation.
“a mutable architecture that, like open source software, remains
available for perpetual modification” *
bienvenid* a la musea.
* Laboria Cuboniks, Xenofeminism. A politics of alienation.
On line: http://www.laboriacuboniks.net/
‘Cómo imaginar una musea?’
la musea invites you all.
> > > la musea : barcelona 2017
la musea sounds and acknowledges everyone who is involved in making it happen.
la musea is not a monolith, she relates to feelings and moods. In the history of el museo as a conqueror of knowledge, as a monument to power, la musea instead moves as a container. La musea’s particular knowledges form counter-narratives of gathering, taking care and nurturing. Ella cambia de forma dependiendo de la situación, but she is always taking care of her contents and the space she is taking up.
la musea is clear on her ethics and she fights for them. La musea is brutal and kind. Her love is wide and circludes como una serpiente. Ella es bacteria - hongo - kefir, always in love, haciendo el amor, in constant exhausting pleasure, sempre reproducing - never dying - eternally young. She feels patient,“but hers is a ferocious patience at odds with “waiting” *.
No espera, she’s always becoming.
* Laboria Cuboniks, Xenofeminism. A politics of alienation. On line: http://www.laboriacuboniks.net/
Porque we are all working in cultural (y otras) institutions into which we awkwardly fit ourselves and our politics. I perquè estem compromeses a visibilitzar el treball invisiblilitzat, to caring for those that work in and visit the museum, to paying attention to the details, en treballar de forma col·lectiva, y en pensar en cómo una institución se puede adaptar a las vidas de aquellas que la habitan.
La musea appeared because
we
really
needed
her.
la musea in this constellation began in 2017 in Barcelona in conversation and collaboration with Adrian Schindler // Ariadna Guiteras // Ariadna Rodriguez // BAR project (Andrea Rodriguez Novoa, Juan Canela, Sara Agudo Millan, and Veronica Valentini) // Caterina Almirall // Eulàlia Rovira // Eva Rowson // Jordi Ferreiro // Lara Garcia Diaz // nyamnyam // Priscila Clementti // Sonia Fernández Pan //
"this direct link exists between penetrating and power. That’s what has to go.
The word “circlude,” is easy to learn and simple to use: I circlude, you circlude, she/he/they/it is circluding, we circlude. Above all, it is much more handy than its counterpart. Penetration has four whole syllables; circlusion only three. We’ll end up saving valuable time while talking. Time which we can invest in fucking."
> > > la musea
: departamentos
Bini, Adamczk, On Circlusion, 2016.
On line: http://www.maskmagazine.com/the-mommy-issue/sex/ circlusion
t h a n k y o u to Marlene Bonnesen, Simon Asencio and Adriano Wilfert Jensen for pointing us to this text.
> > > la musea : programa sin créditos madrid 2017
> > > la musea : CASTING THE SPELL
what does la musea have to say?
> > > la musea : library
la musea is a container.
la musea circludes.
> > > la musea : programme for
Fundació Antoni Tàpies // 2017
.
Ella susurra.
She never wants to forget to ask com estàs?. She likes singing in the shower, even if sometimes she does it only mentally to keep the silence when others are still sleeping. She has as many voices as people can embody her. She likes many music styles as many people can dance through her spaces.
Ella es el eco que que perma-nece hasta que su última habitante desaparece.
la musea speaks up for what she believes in, even if she has a quiet voice. ella se hace escuchar
Imagina:
“Tienes un cuarto propio, en tu casa, hasta ahora exclusivamente
owned by men. You are able, pero con mucho trabajo y esfuerzo para poder pagar el alquiler, but this freedom is only beginning; the room is your own, but it is still there – necesita ser amueblada, it has to be de-corated, necessita ser compartida. How are you going to furnish it? How are you going to decorate it? Con quien la vas a compartir and upon what terms? These I think are questions de suma importancia and interest.”*
Inside la musea, the furniture is move-able.
* Virginia Woolf, Professions for Women, 1931. Quoted in Céline Condorelli, The Company She Keeps,
2014.
Some days she is lazy y piensa en su derecho a la pereza. But not according to paul Lafar -gue; just according to her feelings, necesidades, energias y de-
seos. She likes to take care of many others, but sometimes she tends to forget to take care about herself. Could an institution “pegár-sele las sábanas”? Llegint un llibre when there are so many mails waiting for being replied? But maybe la musea is not using emails, just telepatía emocional.
la musea feels the mooood.
la musea is fucked off.
la musea is a good host, and always thinks about the washing up.