Militant Research: Sharing Knowledge from Struggles

Critical Node

20 April - 6 July 2023 - Check programme
Maja Bajevic, Arts, Crafts and Facts (Top 10%, 90%), 1967. Museo Reina Sofía
Maja Bajevic, Arts, Crafts and Facts (Top 10%, 90%), 1967. Museo Reina Sofía

Inside the framework of the Critical Node Militant Research, from the Museo Reina Sofía’s Study Programme Connective Tissue, the Foundation of the Commons, the Institute of Radical Imagination and La Laboratoria, in collaboration with the Museo en Red team, put forward a space of training and study on the specificity of forms of militant research. Situated outside academic frameworks, these investigations pick up the legacy of workers’ co-research from the 1960s, feminist epistemologies and theories of research-action. Therefore, more than establishing a method, they seek to generate devices in order for social struggles to read each other and find causes that lead to action.

This Critical Node looks to reflect on (and from) tools and learnings from networks with which the Museo has been collaborating over the past fifteen years, in relation to those processes of knowledge production which ultimately aim not to interpret the world but to organise its transformation.

Participants

The Institute of Radical Imagination (IRI) is a Mediterranean-wide network founded in 2017 by artists, activists, academics and cultural producers with a shared interest in co-producing knowledge, artistic and political research and interventions aimed at implementing post-capitalist ways of life. With the vocation of joining art, activism and pedagogy, the IRI emerges as a post-capitalist institution — a "quasi-institution" — which operates as an interface between diverse spaces and agents, causing mutual contamination between academic institutions, museums and self-managed social centres.

La Laboratoria. Spaces of Feminist Research is a transnational device of feminist activist research, that which is developed by those involved in different territories, involved in specific conflicts and struggles, with different yet common languages and questions. The research applies the lens of feminist contempt to diverse processes, flowing beyond any drawer or pigeonhole of so-called "women’s" issues. With participation from four cities — Buenos Aires, Quito, New York and Madrid — La Laboratoria promotes activist research inside the feminist tide as situated theoretical practice allowing maps of position and analysis to be constructed collectively. 

Foundation of the Commons is a laboratory of discourse and political action, entangling a series of research, publishing, training and bookshop groups that pool resources to drive the development of critical culture and social democratisation. The structure of the network is made up of social and research spaces (La Casa Invisible, Ateneo La Maliciosa, Traficantes de Sueños, IDRA, Ateneu Candela, Synusia and Katakrak) from different corners of the Iberian Peninsula (Málaga, Madrid, Barcelona, Terrassa, Iruñea-Pamplona).

Financiado por la Unión Europea

Programa

Militant Research from Artistic Practice

These sessions explore different formats with which artistic tools enable other possible worlds to be imagined: mapping networks of activism, drawing up manifestos, creating spaces of assembly in the framework of art and developing collective dramaturgies as modes of investigating the present.

Actividad pasada Thursday, 20 April 2023
Session 1

6pm  Approach to Radical Pedagogies: The School of Emergencies and Kirik
— With the participation of Dimitry Vilensky and Zeyno Pekünlü (Institute of Radical Imagination)

7:30pm Artistic Platforms as Strategies of Subjectivation and Political Action: Art for UBI and Art for Radical Ecologies
— With the participation of Marco Baravalle, Gabriella Riccio and Emanuele Braga (Institute of Radical Imagination)

Nouvel Building, Protocol Room

60 people

Admission

Free, until full capacity is reached, with prior ticket collection at the Museo’s Ticket Offices or on the Museo Reina Sofía website from 10am on 18 April. A maximum of 2 per person

Actividad pasada Friday, 21 April 2023
Session 2

11am Research and Artistic Practices from Self-management
— With the participation of Pablo García Bachiller, Gabriella Riccio and Marco Baravalle (Institute of Radical Imagination)

CSA La Tabacalera (calle de Embajadores 51, Madrid)

30 people

Admission

Free, until full capacity is reached, with prior registration via email by writing to museoenred@museoreinasofia.es until 16 April, stating personal details (name and surname[s], place and date of birth) and reasons for participating in the workshop (a maximum of 250 words)

Actividad pasada Friday, 21 April 2023
Session 3

6pm Approach to Radical Pedagogies: Raising Care
— With the participation of Maddalena Fragnito, Elena Blesa Cábez and Theo Prodromidis (Institute of Radical Imagination)

7:30pm The Common and the Legal: Tools and Strategies
— With the participation of Giuseppe Micciarelli, Gabriella Riccio and Pablo García Bachiller (Institute of Radical Imagination)

Nouvel Building, Protocol Room

60 people

Admission

Free, until full capacity is reached, with prior ticket collection at the Museo’s Ticket Offices or on the Museo Reina Sofía website from 10am on 18 April. A maximum of 2 per person 

Militant Research from Social Movements

 Can a summer camp be considered a militant research practice? And the list of organic suppliers who stock a social centre’s canteen? In the following sessions, the Foundation of the Commons explores how spaces of knowledge production forged in the heat of social movements’ political and organisational practices are shaped.

Actividad pasada Thursday, 25 May 2023
Session 4

6:30pm La Encuesta Inquilina (The Tenant Survey)
— With the participation of IDRA (The Urban Research Institute of Barcelona) (Foundation of the Commons)

7:45pm The Future Is Unwritten
— With the participation of Synusia, Katakrak and Traficantes de Sueños (Foundation of the Commons)

Nouvel Building, Protocol Room and Online platform

30 people

Admission

Free until full capacity is reached

Actividad pasada Friday, 26 May 2023
Session 5

11am How Do We Conduct Militant Research?
— With the participation of IDRA, Synusia, Katakrak and Traficantes de Sueños (Foundation of the Commons)

Ateneo La Maliciosa (calle de las Peñuelas 14, Madrid)

30 people

Admission

Free until full capacity is reached

Situated Research in Contexts of Violence

This session sees La Laboratoria look to apply situated research to the systemic dimension and the interconnection between different forms of violence: social, sexual, economic, judicial. It looks to explore the potential of the situated epistemological perspective to deploy a radical critique of hegemonic discourses on violence or the role of States in legitimising and concealing some forms of violence and criminalising others, raising, from collective practices, the possibilities of transformative feminist justice.

Actividad pasada Wednesday, 5 July 2023 - 5pm
Session 6

5pm Introduction. What Does Investigating Violence from a Situated Perspective Mean?
— With the participation of Susana Draper (Madres Protectoras) and Itzell Sánchez (Técnicas Rudas / Colectiva Acción Directa Autogestiva). Supported by Débora Ávila

7pm All that Crushes Us. Intersecting Violence
— With the participation of María José Barrera (Colectivo de Prostitutas de Sevilla), Luci Cavallero (Ni Una Menos) and Ana Pinto (Jornaleras de Huelva en lucha). Supported by Constanza Cisneros

This activity offers a play centre for children to help parents with childcare. The registration form can be found at this link.

Nouvel Building, Auditorium 200 and online platform

200 people

Admission

Free, until full capacity is reached, with prior ticket collection at the Museo’s Ticket Offices or on the Museo Reina Sofía website from 10am on 3 July. A maximum of 2 per person

Actividad pasada Thursday, 6 July 2023 - 5pm
Session 7

5pm Debates around (Anti)Punitivism from Situated Feminist Struggles
— With the participation of Vicky García (La Laboratoria Nodo Europa Sur), Fernanda Martins and Laia Serra. Supported by Justa Montero

7pm Beyond Victimisation. Feminist Self-defence and Strategies of Community Responsibility
— With the participation of Jazmin Sofia Escuntar Chavez (Mujeres de Frente), Martha Cecilia Collaguazo Velasco (Mujeres de Frente), Maria Jose "Guru" Jiménez Cortiñas (Asociación Gitanas Feministas por la Diversidad), Aida Elizabeth Pino Naranjo (Mujeres de Frente) and Helena Silvestre (Escola Feminista Abya Yala). Supported by Tatiana Romero

This activity offers a play centre for children to help parents with childcare. The registration form can be found at this link.

Nouvel Building, Protocol Room and online platform

200 people

Admission

Free, until full capacity is reached, with prior ticket collection at the Museo’s Ticket Offices or on the Museo Reina Sofía website from 10am on 3 July. A maximum of 2 per person