The queer temple at the Barcelona LGBTI Centre will be open until Tuesday 31 January. “Spells and Dissidences” is a collective exhibition that reappropriates the elements of religions and spiritualities in order to build new narratives from the perspective of sexual and gender diversity.
The exhibition “Spells and Dissidences”, which forms part of the “Espiritualitats” [Spiritualities] programme of activities at the Barcelona LGBTI Centre, will be open to the public until Tuesday 31 January. Admission is free during the centre’s usual opening hours.
The exhibition was initially scheduled to close on 30 December, at the end of the year. However, given how successful and well-received by the public it’s been, the centre’s programming department has decided to extend that period, so as to give those who have not yet visited it the opportunity to do so.
“Spells and Dissidence” is the first exhibition to be organised and curated entirely by the Barcelona LGBTI Centre’s programming team, made up of Julia Pardo and Xeito Fole.
The exhibition opened at the Barcelona LGBTI Centre on 25 October, with a veritable witches’ coven in which the authors of the works and the curatorial team took part. Via this link you can watch and listen to the whole of the presentation.
There is also a paper guide to the exhibition containing texts describing the works, illustrated by Michael Simbaña, who is also the artist behind the illustrations in the “Spiritualities” programme.
“Spells and Dissidences” brings together the works of a dozen artists and activists to explore the different ways in which dissidents experience spirituality, and invites us to travel through different lands and traditions, such as those of Mexico, Chile, the Pyrenees, Argentina and Andalusia.
It’s a collective exhibition, one that as an exercise in queer art re-appropriates elements from religions and spiritualities to construct new narratives based on the representation of sexual, affective and gender diversity.
Almost as if it were a stroll through a kind of queer temple, the altars of the exhibition space at the LGBTI Centre will be filled with witches, magicians, spiritists, healers and shamans, as well as saints, angels and deities.
Among the exhibits is the Santo Coño Insumiso de Barcelona, an installation created by Andalusian activists in Barcelona in solidarity with the feminists from Seville and Malaga who were charged with alleged religious hate crimes for carrying this figure of a giant plastic vagina in a protest demonstration reminiscent of Easter processions in Spain.
Also on display is the audiovisual piece “Àngel Negre”, a work by activist and intersex researcher Mer Gómez that reinterprets religious iconography through the lens of sexual diversity. The piece was produced as part of the activity “Mirades insubmises. Thinking about sexual diversity and desire through art” at the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya (MNAC).
The exploration of roots, the vindication of genealogy and the attempt to heal the wounds of one’s own lineage is present in the works of the artistic collective Las Migras de Abya Yala. Through their works they recover photographs from family albums, and revive techniques such as textile arts or photo-embroidery. These pieces come from the exhibition “Travesías entre ensoñaciones y tempestades”, organised by feminist art collective FemArt in the Ca La Dona exhibition space.
The irreverence and challenge posed by the collages of Canarian artist and writer Roberta Marrero; the ironic prayer of those taking part in the first Jornades Estatals Autogestionades sobre Bisexualitat [Self-managed State Conferences on Bisexuality]; the vindication of the memory of witches and bisexual referents with the analogue collage of Leticia P. F. de Bobadilla or the magic of medicinal, protective and ritual plants portrayed in an ethnobotanical way in Natalia Saldaña’s illustrations, or with a fun pop vibe by Rapha Hu, complete this singularly dissident pantheon.
Since its inauguration on 13 October, more than 500 people have visited the exhibition. If you haven’t come to see it yet, take note of the opening hours:
Mondays: from 3.30 pm to 8.30 pm
Tuesdays to Fridays: from 10 am to 2 pm, and from 3.30 pm to 8:30 pm
Saturdays: from 10 am to 2 pm, and from 3 pm to 8 pm
You’ll find more information about the exhibition here.