Open Call – School of Common Knowledge 2025

In the current context fraught with war and genocide, the criminalization of migration and hyper-identitarianism, concepts such as un/belonging become unstable and in need of collective rethinking.

How can we reframe the sense and practice of belonging away from reductive nationalist paradigms or the violence of displacement? How to critically hold the entanglement of the colonial routes and the cultural roots we are part of? What do we do with the toxic legacies we inherit? And with the emancipatory genealogies and practices that we choose to align with? Can a renewed practice of belonging and coalition-making through affinity be part of a process of dis/identification? What geographies – cultural, artistic, political – do these practices of de/centering, up/rooting, un/belonging and dis/alignment designate?

Departing from these questions, the program consists of a series of visits to situated initiatives (including Museo Situado, Paisanaje and MACBA’s Kitchen, to name a few), engagements with the exhibitions and projects on view (Project a Black Planet: The Art and Culture of Panafrica), a keynote lecture by Stefano Harney and Fred Moten, as well as daily reading and discussion gatherings, editorial harvest sessions, and conviviality moments.

How to participate

To apply, please submit a short motivation letter (500 words max.), together with your biography and contact details by 27 June. Applications must be sent as one PDF file to sck@macba.cat. Successful applicants will be informed by 9 July.

A contribution of 300 EUR per participant will cover the travel from Madrid to Barcelona during the program and most of the meals. Inbound travel to Madrid and return travel from Barcelona, as well as the accommodation in both cities, will need to be covered by applicants themselves.

For more information, please visit MACBA and Museo Reina Sofía online.