2009-2010:Discussion Panels

URBAN BUDDY SCHEME

Madrid is growing in an unprecedented pace. Multi disciplinary initiatives are engaged in processes that formulate new possible relationships with the city and its inhabitants, this while revealing complex layers of information. Activities that aim to envision possible futures, beyond the current construction crisis, continue with impressive strength.

Madrid Abierto 2009-10 (previously an annual event of interventions in the city, now biennial) will host a seminar at La Casa Encendida 5-8 February 2009. This edition of Madrid Abierto sets out to investigate the potentials of collaborative socio-cultural and politically engaged work and how such work may perform as catalysts for change in the city. We will also try to activate processes that integrate new bodies of knowledge into the already existing.

The aims for these days are basically two. One is to connect the group of selected Madrid Abierto participants with people in Madrid, but also to keep connecting people in Madrid with each other. The resulting networks we aim to establish will hopefully serve as information base, forum for discussion and exchange in preparation for Madrid Abierto projects that are presented in February 2010.

In an effort to provide the artists visiting from abroad with tools that facilitate exchange with people in Madrid as well as an understanding and engagement with the city, locally based practitioners from various fields have been invited to present their views of Madrid. The seminar also includes a group of additional invited artists with an international profile who presents their context specific works carried out in other parts of the world as springboards for further discussion.