Paul B. Preciado, philosopher and curator of the exhibition Lorenza Böttner. Requiem for the Norm
Antonio Centeno and Elena Prous, functional diversity activists
Patricia Carmona, founder of the theater and dance Liant la Troca collective
Jo Sol, film director
23th and 24th January. Espai 4 and Virreina LAB
Free entrance. Limited places

The work of Lorenza Böttner, an armless transgender artist who painted with her mouth and feet, has shaken up traditional ways of thinking about artistic practice and relations between the normal and the pathological. Beyond the patronising account of the heroic artist, Böttner questions and destabilises the power relations between masculinity and femininity, validity and invalidity, painting and dance, and drawing and performance, and calls for another epistemology, another way of looking and narrating, which redistributes and democratises bodies and organs (hands, feet, the mouth, the skin, etc.) in artistic practice.

Wednesday 23 January - Espai 4 -  streaming available
With sign language intepreter

6.30 pm: Story of the foot: art and functional diversity according to Lorenza Böttner
By Paul B. Preciado, philosopher and curator of the exhibition Requiem for the norm.

7.15 pm: Functional diversity and sexual disobedience
Round table with Antonio Centeno and Elena Prous, functional diversity activists. Performance with Patricia Carmona, founder of the theater and dance Liant la Troca collective

Thursday 24 January - Virreina LAB
7 pm: Vivir y otras ficciones (Living and Other Fictions)

Screening of the film Vivir y otras ficciones (2016, Jo Sol, 81 min).
With the participation of Jo Sol, film director, and Antonio Centeno, functional diversity activist.

Antonio Centeno Ortiz was born in 1971 in Montcada i Reixac and has lived in Barcelona since 1999. He became functionally diverse (tetraplegic) at the age of 13. He graduated in Mathematics from the University of Barcelona and taught secondary school maths between 1998 and 2010. He has been a member of Foro de Vida Independiente y Divertad (Forum for Independent Living and Dignity and Freedom) since 2004 and in this capacity has appeared twice before the Parliament of Catalonia’s Social Policy Committee, once in 2005 and then later in 2006. He also appeared before the Committee to Study the Situation of People with Disabilities in 2010 and most recently before the Social and Family Affairs Committee in 2016. In addition, he appeared before the Spanish Congress Equality Committee in 2011 and before the Spanish Congress Integrated Disability Policies Committee in 2018. He was one of the nine founding members of the Barcelona-based OVI (Office of Independent Living) in 2006. He has been involved in a number of cultural audiovisual projects connected with functional diversity: the television series Trèvols de 4 fulles (2018), as a co-scriptwriter and actor; the film about sexual assistance Vivir y otras ficciones (2016), as an actor; the documentary about sexuality Yes, we fuck (2015), as a co-director; and the crippled post-porn short Nexos (2014), as a co-scriptwriter and actor. He also runs the Tus manos, mis manos (Your Hands, My Hands) sexual assistance project, contributes to the En torno a la silla (About the Chair) collective, which specialises in the free and collaborative design of aids and the ARTransforma (Artransforms) inclusive art project, and writes opinion pieces for the Social.cat and Derechos Humanos ¡Ya! (Human Rights Now!) portals.

Jo Sol is an audiovisual scriptwriter and director who is a leading light in the ‘urgent cinema’ movement, which is based on the freedom of language and independence in production processes. His films present an alternative discourse in a bid to counter themes that are usually absent from the dominant cinematographic output, reinforced by a direct link with militant individuals and collectives. His films have been awarded numerous prizes at film festivals and are often screened to illustrate socio-political debates.
 

Elena Prous is a multitalented student of development co-operation, human rights and creative writing and is currently studying for a degree in Social and Cultural Anthropology. She qualified as a nurse in 2006 but gave up the profession and teaching in this field to become an activist in the realm of functional diversity by participating in various workgroups, writing opinion pieces and studying social sciences. She has participated in the Foro de Vida Independiente y Divertad (Forum for Independent Living and Dignity and Freedom) since 2010 and has been a member of other working groups and associations related to activism in the field of functional diversity, among them Diversidad Funcional Sol 15M (Functional Diversity Sol 15 May), SOLCOM (Community Solidarity) and CRIANAP (Childcare and Personal Assistance Workgroup). She is continuing to pursue this with the Asamblea de Cojas, Transfeministas y Otras Rarezas (Assembly of Lame Women, Transfeminists and Other Rarities), set up in April 2018. She has pursued writing as channel of transformation ever since she became functionally diverse in 2008 and contributes to journals and websites such as infomedula.org, derechoshumanos ya! and the feminist periodical La Madeja. As part of her ongoing process, she is now seeking to learn to use the body to accompany words, as in the performance Aguanta tú que puedes (Hang in There, Those of You who Can), mounted as part of the Lame Women, Transfeminists and Other Rarities Seminar in May 2018, and her participation in the video clip La última atrocidad (The Final Atrocity), with Jo Sol and Patricia Carmona.