2008:Discussion Panels

Continuing the practice established in the last editions, this year the debate tables are organised once again in collaboration with La Casa Encendida. As in previous editions, on the one hand, the debate tables will present the projects produced for Madrid Abierto and, on the other, they will introduce different initiatives developed within the sphere of art in the public space.

The round tables will include the active participation of the commission set up last year to debate the model of Madrid Abierto. The commission's co-ordinator, Rocío Gracia, and its members, Cecilia Anderson, Guillaume Désanges, Jorge Díez, Ramón Parramon, María Inés Rodríguez and Fito Rodríguez, together with this edition's organisers, the collective DEMOCRACIA.

For the artists’ presentations, the event's organisers have established three groups, although aware that the groups may be pervious and that one same project may meet several of the established premises. On the one hand, we will have the projects that make the contemporary class conflict visible, as well as a temporary suspension of the exclusions generated by this conflict, on another hand, those that employ elements or the propagandistic language of the urban scene, and lastly, those more closely associated with forms of urban culture.

The artistic experience developed in the public space faces the complex task of intervening in a saturated and hyper-aesthetized space with few fissures. The temporary and ephemeral nature of these artistic practices often places obstacles in the way of the dissemination and development possibilities of many interesting proposals that would require more time, with respect to the prior investigation and the subsequent production of the interventions as well as the desirable convergence with other projects and other social and cultural agents. In light of this, the opening of new spaces is needed to encourage other forms of production and dissemination, as well as the creation of networks of information and collaboration between this kind of artistic practices. For this reason, every year Madrid Abierto aims to give exposure to other similar experiences. In this edition, Nelson Brissac and Vit Havranek will be responsible for presenting invited projects, offering their experience in the debate on the strategies applied to the city and the territory from an artistic perspective, with more or less emphasis on experimentation, multi-discipline, the process and interaction with the public.