Activities

On 9 June 2022, Spain’s Congress of Deputies approved the ratification of Convention 189 in relation to decent employment for domestic workers, advocated by the International Labour Organisation (ILO). This significant victory was the outcome of years of struggle and the organisation of workers, who finally witnessed a commitment from the Spanish State to address their labour demands and acknowledge their work. Nevertheless, this road is not at its end and this commitment must materialise in the development of legislation and public policies related to care. 

In a session set up as half workshop, half relational theatre and a ghostly escape room, the activity becomes an immersive experience encompassing teaching, play and popular culture. All starting from the premise: If there’s something strange in your library, who’re you going to call?

The Museo Reina Sofía and Márgenes. Madrid International Film Festival, which explores new audiovisual idioms, begin a new collaboration. This joint project comprises the organisation of an annual series — this year devoted to artist and theorist Hito Steyerl (Munich, 1966) — the presentation of the festival inside the Museo and the performance of a live audiovisual piece. For the fourteenth edition of Márgenes, held from 22 to 30 November 2024, the work Does It Still Matter (2024), by composer and artist Noémi Büchi (Zürich, 1991), is due to be performed.

The exhibition Opera to a Black Venus is the most complete display of the work of Portuguese artist Grada Kilomba in Spain. This activity sees Kilomba survey her work inside the exhibition space as she explores the themes of memory, trauma and postcolonialism that run through her artistic practice.

Feminist urbanism critically analyses how power dynamics and gender roles influence the design and management of cities and urban spaces — an approach that challenges and transforms the spatial hierarchies which have historically privileged the needs of men and have excluded women and other marginalised groups. This encounter sees theorist and curator Elke Krasny converse with architect Izaskun Chinchilla on feminist ways of reimagining the present and future of the city.

This edition of Situated Voices opens up a conversation to reflect grassroots feelings, desires, analyses and proposals, thereby advocating real and fair access to culture for all.

For his new performance, TOTENTANZ - Morgen ist die Frage, Morau has conceived of a non-theatrical space, the Museo Reina Sofía, as the place from which to give form to his La Veronal stage conception, whereby dance, image, literature and music coalesce. In the three spaces inside the Museo where he will perform Totentanz — one as reception, one as performance, one as video projection — spectators are involved from the outset in a kind of spiritism session that is “disturbing but ridiculous”, as defined by Roberto Fratini, the author of the dramatic composition of the work, premiered in Spain on this occasion.

This year marks the 150^th anniversary of the birth of Joaquín Torres García (Montevideo, 1874–1949), one of the foremost artists in a rereading of modernity from the South.

Georges Didi-Huberman (Saint-Étienne, 1953), one the pre-eminent art historians of the present time, has curated two exhibitions in the Museo Reina Sofía: ATLAS. How to Carry the World on One’s Back? (2010–2011) and “In the Troubled Air…” (2024), both of which form a diptych on the knowledge and experience of images. In this lecture and talk, Didi-Huberman, with Manuel Borja-Villel, director of the Museo from 2008 to 2023, will expand upon the underpinnings of this diptych.

Continuing with the same strand of independent comics, and previous instalments devoted to Chris Ware and Julie Doucet, this edition of Documents is centred on the work of Daniel Clowes (Chicago, 1961), a key point of reference in contemporary comic books. On this occasion, Clowes will also participate in an encounter with Rubén Lardín.

For the first time, the Museo Reina Sofía welcomes Óprima!, an annual encounter which, since 2022, has gathered collectives, associations and creatives with an interest in uniting theatre and activism to drive social transformation via Theatre of the Oppressed: a practice, created by Brazilian dramatist and educator Augusto Boal in the 1960s, which puts forward “a theatre of oppressed classes for the oppressed” as a tool to fight against oppressive structures.

Thinking about the World from Art and Science is an activity organised by the Museo Reina Sofía to present the CNIO Arte project, an initiative run by the Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Oncológicos (the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre), which has combined contemporary art and science since 2018. The project seeks to spark dialogue between international scientists and artists to explore common territories and to produce work from this conversation.

Museo Situado unites with the launch of the Padrón por derecho (Residency Registration by Right) campaign, together with different collectives, to make citizens aware of institutions’ compliance in people’s right to register their residency. This encounter features music and poetry which open another awareness-raising window upon this collective demand.