How Barcelona's artistic institutions can act as agents of cultural innovation

How do Barcelona's cultural institutions act as agents of cultural innovation for the city, if they do at all? This was the question at the heart of the roundtable discussions on Thursday evening in the Jaume Fuster library as part of the city's Biennial of Thought festival. 

The event featured a roundtable discussion that brought together the directors of three of the city's major cultural institutions: the MACBA (the Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art), the CCCB (Contemporary Cultural Center of Barcelona), and the famed Liceu opera house situated on La Rambla boulevard. 

Opera, its director, Valentí Oviedo, freely admitted, is not for everybody. However, with this acknowledgment in mind, he has aimed to bring the neighborhood of Raval and the Liceu opera house together since he has been in his position. 

As a result of "tremendously important collaboration" with the local residents of the neighborhood, Liceu launched in 2021 a community production line that has given rise to a newly created opera performed by the local residents of the neighborhood themselves. 'Traction – Opera created for social transformation' is a project that aims to bring opera to people at risk of social and technological exclusion. 

Oviedo explained how the team needed to "learn by doing" and emphasized the importance of "connecting people," one of the core values of the project. In four years of working with various associations, the collaborative community project was born directly out of elements of the neighborhood of Raval. 

Institutions working closely with social associations were vital to the success of this project, Liceu's director explained, while also making the comparison of the partnership with Gene Saks's 1968 film, 'The Odd Couple.' 

"Culture works for memory" 

Judit Carrera, director of the CCCB, spoke about the art center's recent exhibition looking at the life, work, and legacy of Francesc Tosquelles, a 20th-century Catalan psychiatrist who pioneered new visions of therapeutic treatment that was completely avant-garde. 

Tosquelles established wards that put culture at the heart of treatment for its inpatients, with the recognition that many mental ailments stemmed from social issues and experiences. Therefore, he used things like poetry, cinema, art, writing, and other artistic modes of expression as tools for therapy. 

"Culture works for memory, this commitment to our own history informs our present," Carrera said at the Bienniel of Thought event. She explained that the figure of Tosquelles served as a good subject for an exhibition because his life mirrored the history Catalonia went through during the 20th century. He lived through the Second Republic, the civil war, and exile to France, where he was able to transform the notion of the psychiatric hospital. 

The CCCB director praised the investigation done into his life, acknowledging that Tosquelles is relatively unknown in Catalonia, and hailed the importance of bringing his legacy back into the public eye. 

"Cultural centers should serve as crossroads for different worlds," according to Carrera. 

Community and institution, a dialogue

Elvira Dyangani, director of MACBA, admitted that the art institution had grown for years "with its back to the community," and since taking up her position, she has worked to make the museum more open and inviting to a wider audience.

Dyangani has set her sights on reforming what and who the institution serves, based on the artistic work that the museum displays. She has aimed to cultivate a more collective feeling in MACBA, one where the community can feel that "everything seems possible," and central to achieving this has been the accessibility of art and culture. 

MACBA, under the guidance of Elvira Dyangani for just over a year now, engages in conversation with the public directly through the art it displays.

The director mentioned during the talk that one of her best moments in the position was when a group of students came to the MACBA and she could hear a hum of excited chatter from the pupils who were discovering this arts center for the first time.

"The institution is not just the building, it's us as well, us as a community," Dyangani said.