Common Material
2009-2010. EVALUATION MEETING 2010 (report)
MADRID ABIERTO 2009-2010
Evaluation meeting
Matadero, 2nf and 3rd of July 2010
Attendees
Laurence Bonvin, Susanne Bosch, Lisa Cheung, Iñaki Larrimbe, Josep-Maria Martín, Jean-François Prost and Gustavo Romano (participant artists in Madrid Abierto 2009-2010); Pablo España (Democracia), Ramon Parramon and Fito Rodríguez (members of the advisory committee of Madrid Abierto 2007-2009); Jorge Díez and Marta de la Torriente (Asociación Cultural Madrid Abierto); Pilar Acón, María Molina, Mariano Serrano and Manuela Sevilla (collaborators of Madrid Abierto 2009-2010).
Issues
The treated issues according to the established programme created by the advisory committee of Madrid Abierto (March 2008):
Fito Rodríguez comments on the reasons for the absence of this edition’s curator, Cecilia Andersson, who should provide an essential perspective for the evaluation. He also stresses that the horizon seems to be predetermined in suggested guidelines.
Jorge Díez states that proper dates to allow the presence of everyone involved were discussed but that it had been impossible for her to come. He says that in a meeting with Cecilia after the presentation of projects in February, they analyzed the difficulties she had to carry out a proper tracking of the production of projects, due to her living in Sweden and the overlap that occurs when making decisions with the production team and headship of Madrid Abierto. Anyhow, the experience of this edition, which covered two years, with a previous preparatory encounter in February of 2009 was considered very positive. Regarding the proposed guidelines for 2011, they are the consequence, on one hand, of the convenience of developing tasks which are impossible to cover following the usual calendar of project development and, on the other hand, the impossibility of compromising the institutional funding for the next edition, bearing in mind the next local and autonomic elections in the first semester of 2011.
Bellow, different issues brought up in this evaluation session:
1. Keep the open call with a maximum of 50% more artists invited by the curators.
To Jean-Françis Prost the edition was very interesting and we must keep it this way. Pablo España underlines the fact that the open call is one of the essential features of the project. No discussion on the subject of percentage of guests.
2. Create a biennial periodicity, keeping the debate sessions and presentations of selected artists for the first year. Focus, the first year as well, on working with selected artists and elaboration of projects.
Diversity of opinions regarding this issue, which are determined by the type of project each artist is dealing with. Some artists, like Josep-María Martin, consider a two year span very little time and suggest it should be triennial (first year for reflection, second year to conceptualize the idea and third year to develop the project. “I have had very little time to reflect on the project, in 6 months I had to deliver a final project and for my type of work there is not enough time to conceptualize”.) When asked about such periodicity, Iñaki Larrimbe considers two years as too much time. Other participants came up with the option of giving each artist the time he needs and carry out the project at different points in time, respecting the cycles of each project and its process. Josep-María insists on the fact that it depends on the type of project, if it has already been thought about and is a development of some previous concept or if it is a project that needs to comprehend and develop within the city, with the community. Laurence Bonvin thinks that she would have needed a whole year to discover the city and another year to take the pictures, she agrees with the fact that it depends on if the project already exists. Pablo España thinks that the model of this last edition is much more realistic regarding artistic practices, thus it has clearly improved. The model might use one practice or the other, depending on the global project. The 2008 edition was of direct propaganda. He agrees in expanding the time span but questions its viability.
We should keep the first year’s encounter, considered by Susanne Bosch, among others, as very important to create contacts, relationships and know the inner workings of Madrid. In such encounter, the Urban Buddy Schemme should prevail by bringing people together and meeting the city’s residents and other agents that might help in the subsequent development, infrastructure and dialogue that the project will need. Josep-María also thinks that the first encounter in February 2009 went very well. He thinks we should keep that first event and create an intermediate work meeting for the artist to get involved in the management of Madrid Abierto and foster collaborations between projects.
Josep-María thinks it is essential to increase the time period in order to find external funding which is necessary for each project. He also believes that Madrid Abierto should become an agency which prolongs the project in time while other projects and things take place during the year and not only during February. He thinks there at two possible models:
A- Select projects in open call and start work.
B- Offer contexts and relations to the artists and start working on the project at that moment.
He thinks the best model would be a synthesis of both. Ramón Parramón thinks that the concentration of projects in time is positive in relation to communication, visibility… and negative for the artist, but it is necessary to keep a common moment in time for all projects. Pablo thinks that we are tending more and more towards the invisibility of the projects therefore he considers it essential to have a date in which they coincide, although there are projects that need more time and continuity. That common moment could be an exhibition.
Josep-María thinks that it’s very important to do something to make the subjective element of each project visible (Are we capable of transforming something subjective? Reveal the work that has been carried out?). Fito believes we should create an accessible device for the public, to explain the projects. He thinks it makes no sense going back to exhibition halls, this would undermine what has already been achieved in public space. There has to be another way to show it, that is the problem. Pablo thinks it is possible to use both platforms; the hall and public space. He doesn’t believe in going back to the institutions or to work in the enclosed space of exhibition halls. Fito and Susanne think the artist himself should take his project from the subjective realm to decide and find the way of showing it; he has to find a solution in order for the external to return to an enclosed space. Laurence thinks there are projects in which we have to discuss not only how they should be shown but also, in projects that have dealt with an external community, to see how such community or communities have been represented and information returns to that community.
Josep-María thinks that technical problems should be shown, why a project has ended up being a certain way and not another, how a project has started, its plan and how it has ended up. Madrid Abierto is a laboratory, with a development in which the artist’s final analysis and delivery of information is essential. It is also essential to arrive to final conclusions, which must be transmitted. Fito dwells on how people can start out from this lab to transcend it and surpass its frontiers into other realms.
3. Continue with February’s interventions
In general, people have suggested carrying out projects outside the month of February, for it is not a proper month weather wise, as well as the amount of ARCO related activities, which interfere. Susanne thinks that by changing the intervention month, a different use of space would be activated on the public’s mind. Manuela Sevilla also thinks it is necessary to change the interventions’ month.
Josep-María thinks that the interesting side of keeping it in February is that it coincides with ARCO providing affluence of specialized public that is in Madrid in those dates. The possibility of keeping it during ARCO is discussed, but extending the period of exhibition from one month to three.
Jorge Díez underlines the fact that, both the common moment in time and its coinciding with ARCO are product of the restructuring of the Open Spaces project carried out by the Altadis Foundation within the Fair itself and on the other hand, the needed visibility both for the public and sponsorship. It is also indisputable that much of the professionals that go to ARCO can discover Madrid Abierto knowing that it would be very difficult to make them come expressly to see it. Also, due to the lack of money that Madrid Abierto invests on promotion, a special time gap has been created in the busy calendar of the city, just before ARCO, which the media has already incorporated. An example is the lack of attention that the media showed for Susanne’s project which started in November.
4. Include a paragraph in the call to contextualize the edition and another more specific paragraph written by the curator/s.
Susanne thinks it is essential because, in her case, she decided to participate only after having read that paragraph.
5. Continue to physically and conceptually exceed the Prado-Recoletos-Castellana axis.
Lisa Cheung doesn’t feel the need to keep intervening within those limits.
Pablo España thinks that it is necessary to surpass those limits to continue with the more realistic model developed in Madrid Abierto.
Jorge considers the transgression of these limits has taken place increasingly and effectively in successive editions. On the other hand, right now institutions would be thrilled by the idea of Madrid Abierto leaving the axis completely. There have been projects (critically oriented) in last editions which have involved very complicated negotiations due to the visibility they had within the axis, and for which other locations entailed no resistance at all.
6. Continue with audiovisual and sound sections and amplify specific means for their broadcast.
The issue wasn’t discussed.
7. Maintain the current advisory committee and choose the curators among its members.
Jorge explains how in 2009, after some personal resignations, they decided to dissolve the committee created in 2007, after the interesting review of the Madrid Abierto model, as consequence of conflicting interests on the role of the curator and also the bad administration of its participation in the model applied by Cecilia in the preparatory encounter of February of 2009.
Once again the role of the curator is discussed, issue on which there is a diversity of opinions.
Fito thinks it is important to maintain two values:
a. The flexibility proven by Madrid Abierto to constantly review the model.
b. He supports the idea of eliminating the curator as individual figure and suggests a collective curatorial position (it’s risky but this wide open policy is a beautiful idea).
On the other hand, like Josep-María, Susanne and Lisa, they support the figure of the individual curator when carrying out their role correctly. It is essential for the curator to be in contact with the artists and never to be “absent”. Josep-María thinks that in this edition the contact with the curator has been very intermittent and might have affected some projects.
Pablo thinks that if the curator is eliminated, Madrid Abierto is under the risk of becoming standard. Josep-María thinks that if we intend to continue with the idea of plurality, and thesis, there must be a curator or curatorial group (for example, maybe the artists of one edition might select the artists of the next), someone to direct the process as an interlocutor in a concrete place, an accessible person who knows the context of Madrid. Susanne thinks it is essential to give each edition a subject or theme; the curator can be international but we also need someone who knows the realities of the city. She suggests the idea of a young person able to create a connection with a foreign curator.
8. Generate documents and publications which expand the experience and the accumulated knowledge of the five editions,
Total agreement.
New issues suggested outside the programmed plan:
1. Communication. Essential subject in which there is total agreement. Jean-François, due to his type of project, can’t plan everything beforehand and needs to carry out an action to activate sensibility and participation in the workshop. His intervention in Atocha has been complicated due to the station’s own rhythm and type of people that walk through the area. He would have needed more communication in order to get to people. He suggests the creation of a better and more specific map or plan where each intervention is clearly distinguishable. We have to find and develop new communication channels so the interventions get to the general public.
2. Manuela considers the project has globally gotten to the public after six editions and has been better conceptualized. By taking place in a two year period it becomes more “intriguing” to the public that follows it with more interest.
3. Ramón Parramón thinks Madrid Abierto has found a balance and has grown to relevant dimensions. He finds it complex because it combines a festival with production and residency (distributed in time). To him it also needs contacts and interaction with neighbourhoods and communities. It is important not to have a space or location of reference.
4. Josep-María believes in the importance of evaluation sessions, which must continue to maintain a transparency which he finds essential.
5. Ramón Parramón thinks the team of Madrid Abierto is too small, he also believes dynamic projects need a tracking, both in preproduction and the rest of the process until they develop completely. Fito says the model each time tends more towards a production agency. Therefore he thinks it is fundamental to create a larger team to produce less projects of larger potential. In his mind a team must be created and dedicated to the production, search of interlocutors for dynamic processes and development, as well as another group exclusively dedicated to communicate with the people, communities, media, blogs,… Josep-Maria disagrees with the idea of reducing the number of projects.
6. Madrid Abierto’s independence is crucial.
7. Josep-María and Susanne Bosch think it’s necessary to create residencies for artists.
8. To Josep-María communication and interaction between selected artists is necessary (an initial one and another during the process in order to share the complexity of its development). He claims not to have known the final development of each project, this has frustrated him. Although Laurence thinks it’s very important to bring the artists together during the year, she finds it very difficult, having the timing of each project in mind, to find a date and moment which fits everyone’s agenda. Lisa agrees with the organization of an annual event to specify the needs of each project and to put them in common with the rest of the artists. Jean-François thinks that the lack of communication between artists has been their own responsibility, they are the ones who must create relationships, but they haven’t. He thinks that, for this purpose, certain platforms or already existing tools could be used for this communication. For example, he names places to meet for five days to work on one project, then on another, and then with the rest. Laurence thinks Madrid Abierto is the one who should decide if it wants more interaction among artists.
9. Laurence considers there must be more communication with the Madrid Abierto team which should explain each person’s role in the organization not to get confused when working. Josep- María agrees on this, there must be a curator, a global producer and local producer; this last position would be currently missing. Due to this communication he claims not to have been able to study or see the different possibilities to develop his project, but to have been given very limited options. Jorge says that in the meeting of February 2009 each person’s function was explained, inside the tiny team of Madrid Abierto. He also explains all the options that were gradually given, for example, to Josep-María regarding his project, which, at some point and, in spite of having a local mediator chosen by himself was in a dead end, solutions that turned out to be pretty effective, for example, to locate and access an apartment where immigrants lived.
10. Both Laurence and Jean-François think it is important to make a first payment of fees at the beginning of the edition. Laurence also thinks that part of the fees should be external to the rest of the money used in production, being important to speed up the payment of those fees. Jorge explains that the fees are included in the totality of each project, but clearly separated and quantified; he apologizes once again because the payment still hasn’t been made due to the fact that Madrid Abierto has not received the City Hall’s subsidy yet, something that has never happened before.
11. Laurence thinks it is important for foreign artists to have a person who mediates with the project and knows the city well. For Lisa’s type of projects, she says she needs an infrastructure-platform to develop them and a different dialogue to that which other projects may need. To her it is basic to have a person in the city where she’s intervening through which she can access the people of different neighbourhoods and to create connections with them. Josep-María thinks that each project needs a support team or an ambassador (it could be done through University students or a teacher or hired person). With time to find funding, such support could be possible. Susanne thinks that the role of an ambassador who works and becomes each project’s spokesman is very important, be it a student or a hired person. Jorge stresses that in different ways all type of possibilities have been experimented, in some cases promoted by the artists and in others by Madrid Abierto. When someone is hired this must be included in the total budget and so it has been done when certain artists have decided to, but volunteers or grant holders have certain degree of uncertainty and lack of professionalism that some artists assume as part of the project and others don’t. The same thing happens with the basic team of Madrid Abierto, which changes with each edition. The reason to this is probably the scale of the whole project and the available budget, which, on the other hand, is dedicated mostly to the projects. It is very possible that the level of voluntarism has exceeded for long any reasonable limit.
12. The search of parallel ways to find funding. Jorge says that this has always been done in different ways for specific projects, but that the global funding has decreased once Altadis Foundation abandoned the project while other alternatives haven’t been found in the private sector, in spite of Telefonica Foundation’s momentarily interest. Also, both the City Hall and Community of Madrid have been reducing the budgets during the last two years, as a consequence of the economic crisis.
Result analysis of the finished projects and new guidelines:
1. Madrid Abierto’s open archive in Matadero.
Jorge explains that, after many tries, and thanks to the collaboration of Pablo Berastegui, coordinator of Matadero, Madrid Abierto will share a space with three other projects (architecture, performing arts and visual artists from Madrid) to organize and centralize both the digital and physical contents that have been generated along the six editions. María Díaz and Manuela Sevilla are already structuring the contents and adding them to the archive.
Susanne and Lisa think that each artist should provide material from the draft, the project and conclusions. It is also felt that it should be open, for communication (blog type) and for a future international forum. Jorge stresses the fact that, initially, everything will be incorporated, except certain contents due to their characteristics or to lack of permission from the artist to be uploaded. At first, like other archives in Matadero, they will be available for public enquire by having previously arranged a date. Susanne underlines the fact that there are other projects in Europe that are working on this subject. Jorge asks for available information to try and collaborate with them.
2. Educational project.
María Molina considers it is possible to keep developing the educational project, in 2011 this year’s pilot experience could be extended.
3. Production of a document based exhibition about the whole of Madrid Abierto in its six editions.
Jorge claims that this exhibition would help us review the work that has been done and reinforce the project’s presence both in exhibition halls and different activities to which Madrid Abierto is invited.
Due to lack of time we won’t analyze each project in the current edition, therefore we find both evaluation sessions to have ended.
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