educacion.ca2m@madrid.org

a thicket took root firmly
a paving stone
a juicy mango
The wild oats
a river, many rivers
so many dreams
two bundles of sage, a few lilies, daisies and sunflowers
 

This reading group draws on the time shared at this year’s Open University, dedicated to communication with non-human life forms, the knowledge that these connections offer us and their possibilities in sensible production. Based on everything that we have learnt in whatever way we could, we leave the past aside (in the hope that other individuals will join in) in order to delve into some of the readings that accompanied that programme and their connections with others.

Therefore, we’ll be exploring texts by, among many others, Gloria Anzaldúa, Reinaldo Arenas, Genesis Beyer P-Obridge and Cristina Rivera Garza with the intention, as the last author recommends: “... to live in a continuous state of alertness as regards the bonds created between humans and other humans, and the bonds between human beings and animal beings, and plant beings, and mineral beings. To inhabit that progression, admittedly. We are not dealing with an abstract or even a sacred connection, but a material interrelationship...”

The thicket reading group is an idea from – and guided by – Adriana Reyes and Manuela Pedrón Nicolau.
The requirement for participation is to have read the texts before each session.

We start this year with a series of encounters in which students of education at the Autonomous University of Madrid (UAM) will be visiting the museum. Together with their teachers from the Department of Art, Plastic and Visual Education, and based on the experience of the group visits, we want to create a space in which the university can work with the museum. What can the museum’s education departments contribute to the training of teachers, and vice versa; what place do art and contemporary artistic practice have in their learning experience?

Project in collaboration with the Department of Artistic, Plastic and Visual Education of the UAM Faculty of Education.

In the coming months, the exhibitions will be full of objects that we will be able to fly over, contemplate from above or close up. We suggest wandering among them, finding refuge under them, letting them move you to see what the encounter brings. We invite you to enjoy this collective experience, which is open to all kinds of groups. Each trail will be different, with the route decided as we go. On Tuesday and Thursday mornings, we invite you to spend some time with us in this refuge, where we can step back and find shelter from the elements.

This programme is designed for groups of all types: associations, organisations and school groups.

Booking required. Contact 912760227 or at educacion.ca2m@madrid.org 

We started this line of research last year, starting with the question: What do 0 to 6 year-old children like? In order to find answers, we visited crèches and nursery schools as an exercise in observation and took away a number of clues: 

• The yoghurt lid. Remove it, ‘read’ it and put it away.
• Stick the mandarin segment stickers in unusual patterns.
• Feed other children
• Mix colours. Paint over and over with a lot of tempera paint. Until the paper breaks.
• Peel the stickers off the crayons.
• Little things. A bit of fluff, a speck. A tiny sequin on the floor that hardly anyone sees.
• Make a bracelet out of a slice of bread.
• Shiny things. Sequins and iridescent fabric. *

With a notebook filled with new actions to put into practice, we continue into this year by giving shine to this research carried out by the education department at the CA2M Museum together with the EnterArte collective. For the coming months, we will be planning new actions, internal meetings and other open activities to think about how to make the museum a softer experience and prepare to open it up to the widest range of people.

*Notes taken by Goya Batalla, member of the EnterArte collective.

This activity belongs to the line Escuela desbordada / Talleres de educación (‘Overflowing School / Education Workshops’) held by the EnterArte collective, which is a part of Asociación Civil Acción Educativa.