March 9: MACBA

The weather of Barcelona has set out to make us feel “at home”.  It has been a little cold and gray, and it rains just the day we have scheduled to visit the Museum of Contemporary Art in Barcelona, but as my friend Emily says, rain is one of the many things that museums protect us from.

Without a doubt, I can say that we felt protected within the walls of  MACBA. We enjoyed a great exchange with Maria Berrios, a Chilean sociologist, researcher and art critic, who recently joined the team of this museum. A very inspiring conversation about her professional trajectory and her work with the invisible world of the artists from the southern cone, helped to encourage us to continue defending the causes that concern us on a personal level.

Another moment of protection, connection and inclusion was our guided tour with Blanca Aries. Artist, writer, Quee(r)n of the arts, I could talk to her all day. She walked us through the Museums exhibitions, of which 80% are by female artists, and she talked to us about all of them from her heart. The only way to make people care about the same things that you care is to make it personal and relatable, and she successful completed that endeavor. Thanks to her we learned that with the new leadership of Elvira Dyangani Ose, the first woman to become Director of this institution, the museum has taken on the task of uplifting the voices that have been silenced for years, hidden in the warehouse of this building. The museum has become a space for the articulation of just causes through art. So we talked about feminism, activism, anti-imperialism, exile and resistance. Concurrent themes in the artists work that are now exhibited.

The prominence of the female voices in this museum is shared with the tiny humans presence. The architectural design of the exhibition rooms is created so that children can also enjoy the exhibitions. Artists who use childhood as the main axis of their work are also represented in this space. And today we saw two groups of small children having fun at the museum, so it is safe to say that the strategy to bring this specific audience in, is working.

To one of the room we had to enter on our knees, there were those who tried to sit in one of the children’s chairs, and others who took off their shoes to walk on one of the works. This level of contact and personal interaction with works of art inside a white cube, truly made us feel comfortable, safe, and part of its body.

After getting the certainty that the Art World has a brighter future, thanks to places like MACBA, it actually got brighter outside.

Author: Amor Diaz Campos