We like to think that in Barcelona there is a cohesive art scene, but in reality we find a constellation of artists orbiting between private institutions, independent spaces that survive as best they can, and collective practices, thus sustaining an ecosystem in constant tension, oscillating between precarity and success. To think of our context as a closed system is as naive as it is insufficient. What we find is, in reality, a network in motion, traversed by circulations, displacements, and affinities.
Given these circumstances, compiling a list of names can be a reckless act. For this reason, this text does not aim to be exhaustive or canonical, but rather a mapping, a partial and subjective cartography, full of names that resonate with us. Delimiting becomes a practical necessity, but also a critical gesture. Faced with the temptation to create an infinite list, we propose a fragmented guide that allows us to discover a generation of artists who are reformulating our local scene: shifting boundaries, questioning frameworks, and experimenting with new ways of being and producing. So yes: we have selected. And in our selection —somewhat arbitrary, perhaps debatable, and even capricious— is where this story begins.
In a tense system, concerns, languages, and ways of doing accumulate that respond to the urgencies of the present. And it is precisely in this saturation that a generation becomes visible that has grown up with little faith in fixed categories. In Barcelona, we find artists who mix many languages with surprising naturalness, who assume various roles at once (out of necessity, of course), combining their work as artists with those of agents, producers, managers, mediators, and a long etcetera. It is a generation born of hybridization, both formal and conceptual, understanding the city not as a center, but as a platform from which to connect, create, and overflow. Barcelona is a living and mutable stage.
Thus, the blocks we find in this journey are nothing more than a way of organizing. This is the list, but it could be another, and every cartography implies making decisions. Because, more than defining the scene, this constellation of artists reveals its complexity: practices that overflow any attempt at classification and that, from precarity and interdependence, experiment with other ways of living, feeling, and building the world.
Images, archive and representation systems
If there is one thing that characterizes many contemporary art practices, it is distrust of images. Because no, images are not neutral: they construct narratives, create imaginaries, and evidence what is shown and what is not. In this context, Agnes Essonti uses family history and her Cameroonian roots to re-signify traditions, cultural practices, and forms of resistance of the African diaspora, while pointing out everything we do wrong, that is, what "official history" has left out. Also with a critical perspective, Claudia Pagès delves into how power works and how it is sustained in everyday life. Mixing choreographies with moving image, she shows us that, without a doubt, the personal is political. How we move, how we speak... none of this is innocent or casual, but rather responds to rules that shape us more than we believe. Marc Larré is also interested in the way we move through the city and what relationships we establish there, proposing an archaeology of the present through touch, while questioning seemingly solid ideas such as progress or modernity.
Paula Artés brings another perspective: she delves into the spaces we don't see through photography and research, to show us what remains hidden and force us to question everything, especially the systems of power and the official narratives that shape our lives.
In this same block we could also include Lola Lasurt, who works with the concept she calls “de-time” to look at the recent past and detect what is missing: the silences, the voids, everything that was never explained. And, of course, María Alcaide, who from fiction proposes to dismantle the social, political and economic imaginaries that surround us, focusing on instability and precariousness. Finally, between fiction and personal narrative, the works of Arash Fayez tell us what happens with identity when you are a migrant person: when you are between places, when you don't quite fit in anywhere.
Body, affects and performativity
At a time when everything happens through a screen, the body becomes a battlefield, a place of resistance. We do not conceive it as something stable or aspirational, but as a vulnerable, porous surface, in constant relation with its environment. This is how Ariadna Guiteras poses it, exploring the limits of the body and, above all, how it links with other beings, human and non-human. In the case of Eva Fàbregas, the body becomes flexible, organic, humid. Her soft sculptures refer us to organs, membranes, fluids and cavities, and propose a sensory experience with materials made in China, where touch and affection come to occupy a prominent place.
Julia Creuheras goes in another direction, but also places the body at the center. The artist creates artifacts in movement that review how the female body has become something full of codes and norms and, from there, proposes new ways of moving, other choreographies, other more open imaginaries. In a similar vein is Mònica Planes, who asks how the body has been represented throughout history and reviews these ways of looking that classify us, measure us and normalize us, not only in the history of art but also in fields such as medicine or anatomy. For her part, Mercedes Pimiento works on the body-space relationship, reminding us that architecture is not neutral and that it influences how we move, what we do and how we live, as well as how the spaces and structures that surround us affect the behavior of materials. In short, the places we inhabit also shape us, and a lot.
Materials and processes
In parallel, many contemporary practices return to matter not only as a support, but as a place of thought. It no longer matters only what is represented, but how, with what and, above all, from what processes. Gonzalo Guzmán creates forms that dance between the dreamlike and reality, sculptures from another planet that function as a mirror and return to us a deformed image of our environment. Julia Spínola, on the other hand, focuses on the gesture and the production process: her pieces are never something closed, but are in constant transformation, as if matter told its own story. For her part, Milena Rossignoli investigates how materials behave and how we perceive emptiness, reminding us, through open and somewhat unstable systems, that nothing is definitive. This block also includes Víctor Ruiz Colomer, who connects matter, space and perception without losing sight of other deeper layers such as economics, pedagogy and social dynamics, reminding us that sculpture is never isolated, but dialogues with everything around us.
Dissidences, identities and other futures
In a world that seems determined to label us and make us fit into molds, there are artists who decide to break all these rules, work from dissidence and imagine other ways of being and existing in the world. This is precisely the work of Ali Arévalo, building non-binary and interspecific universes where fiction ceases to be just a game and becomes a tool to imagine possible futures. In her work, time dissolves and bodies become liquid, impossible to catch. With a more ironic touch, Blanca Gracia mixes escapism and fiction to point out the contradictions of the present, playing with pseudocolonial imaginaries and current fantasies, almost like a mocking reflection of our collective obsessions.
Lucía C. Pinotraverses materials, bodies, and processes from a queer perspective, creating expansive sculptures where desire and sensuality become forms of knowledge. For her part,Hac Vinent puts on the table her experience as a deaf person to question everything: what is a "normal" body, what is humanity... and makes us rethink what it really means to have and inhabit a body. On the other hand,Daniel Gasol is dedicated to overturning the discourses of our society, questioning the idea that working is a duty, that there are correct bodies and normative sexualities. Her work is a wake-up call that forces us to think about who rules, who decides, and how history is told to us.
Voice, listening, and sound space
Beyond what we see, sound is a perfect terrain for play and experimentation. In this field, Laia Estruch uses her voice as if it were an extension of her own body. She makes it sound, vibrate, fill spaces and transform them, making it interact with the architecture and the environments that surround it. For her part, Laura Llaneli works by crossing sound, language, and structures, testing the codes we use without realizing it and that organize our daily experience, while Sofía Montenegro combines sound and image to expand the artistic experience throughout the space. In her pieces, listening, feeling, and movement are mixed, making it impossible to separate one from the other.
Obviously, we cannot fail to mention the collective Cabosanroque, which works with sound as something performative and playful, questioning the exhibition space and the way spectators move within it. Their interventions make us look and listen in a different way, play with artifice, and discover how we relate. In a similar vein is the work of Meritxell de Soto, who, always dressed to kill, explores how sound devices interact with us, with our dynamics of power, identity, gender, and eroticism, bringing body and machine together so that both speak at once, creating experiences where feeling and thinking intertwine.
And here ends this very brief cartography, though not without first mentioning a few more names. From those who play with the internet and memory, like Daniel Cao or Daniel Moreno Roldán, to artists like Mar Arza, who uses words and writing; Luis Renteria, who turns fabric into a medium to tell stories and question how historical narratives are constructed; Míriam Dema and Rita Sala Treig, who from painting and drawing invite us to see everyday life with different eyes; Jan Vallverdú, who reflects with gestures and figures the contradiction of our existence; Sejal Parekh, who through somatic installations, video and sound invites us to rethink what we understand by community and belonging. Also Laura Sebastianes, Helena Laguna, Huaqian Zhang, Rocío Quillahuaman and a long etcetera that make Barcelona's art scene vibrant, diverse and full of surprises. We insist: this is the list, but it could perfectly have been another.