Prospective Actions (Catalunya 2004 - 2018)

Laura Clos Closca, Pau Masaló, Xesca Salvà, Marc Villanueva Mir

If performative strategies are constantly enacted by states to sustain their power structures, we also see an increasing number of resistance actions being deployed by grassroots movements that rely on alternative performances of spaces and bodies, and which become able to inspire and challenge stage design.

Prospective Actions (Catalunya 2004-2018) is a participative multimedia installation that approaches this question ahead of six social conflicts that took place in Catalonia in the last 15 years, and which showcase a strong tension between police control and the opening up of new forms to use and produce public space. We invited six Catalan scenographers who started working in the nineties to help us think about these conflicts, as well as about the position of arts in front of political struggles and the interweavings between studio and street. A big round table becomes a board game, a stage for potential actions and a meeting point between two generations, separated by the breakout of the financial crisis and its impact on life, working conditions and worldviews.

This installation was granted the Best Exhibition Award in the Exhibition of Countries and Regions at the Praque Quadriennal 2019.

“The disembodied voice of a Catalan designer tells me to take the objects out of the white Formica drawer in front of me. I lay a table. I make a barricade. I watch a video of Spanish police brutally beat Catalans trying to vote in Barcelona. I look across to see my neighbour arrange pins in felt to mimic the groupings of protestors. There are six of us sat at this table, each meditatively engaged in minute tasks that re-enact Catalan politics, six social conflicts over the last 15 years with nothing more complex that balloons, stickers, tableware and pins.”
Francesca Pechier, “A transformative tour of Prague Quadriennal”, Exeunt Magazine

Concept and design Laura Clos Closca, Pau Masaló, Xesca Salvà, Marc Villanueva Mir
Curated by Bibiana Puigdefàbregas, Marta Rafa
Invited scenographers Anna Alcubierre, Paco Azorín, Cube.bz, Sílvia Delagneau, Max Glaenzel, Eugenio Szwarcer
Construction Jorba-Miró, Estudi Taller d’Escenografia
Electronic design Carlos Franke
Sound design Gerard Valverde
Video Alfonso Ferri
Video assistant Laia Tubío
Technical management Roger Orra
Photography Julia Bauer, Xenia Cubí
Production Maria Guillén
English translation Pere Bramon, Neil Charlton
Czech translation Eliška Raiterová
Catalan voiceover Núria Martínez-Vernis
English voiceover Herbert Graf, Amélie Haller, Maria Huber, Martin Müller
Czech voiceover Nina Jacques, Bořek Joura, Nataša Mikulová, Ian Mikyska

With special thanks to Eduardo Cáliz, Toni Cervantes, Cesca Fora

Production of Institut del Teatre with the collaboration of Institut Ramon Llull




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Previous dates

Olot | Teatre Principal
30.9.-3.10.2021
18h - 20h

Barcelona | Mercat de les Flors
15.10.-22.11.2020
18h/ 19h/ 20h

Prague | PQ19
6.-16.6.2019