Fabricate landscapes at Palau Moja

In the framework of the 'Museum Habitat' project, on June 27th the exhibition 'Narrating Landscapes' was opened, a proposal that not only showcases new works but also aims to provoke thought, challenge, and transform the museum as we know it. The proposal invites us to conceive museums from a reflective and transformative perspective that will unfold between the Palau Moja and the Palau Victòria Eugènia in Barcelona, from June 27th to October 5th, 2025, with free admission. Prior reservation is required at Palau Moja. 'Museum Habitat' is a project promoted by the Department of Culture of the Generalitat de Catalunya, with the participation of the Diputació de Barcelona, which aims to create a space for research, experimentation, and reflection on what the museum institution can be in the 21st century. 'Museum Habitat' draws on both history and the complex social and sensitive relationships that shape contemporary society. The exhibition has also been made possible thanks to the support of a diverse network of artists, collectives, and museum institutions. The structure of 'Museum Habitat' is based on cooperation between reference cultural institutions to promote the creation of spaces for critical debate, research, and experimentation on the future of the museum institution. 'Narrating Landscapes', the title of the exhibition, takes viewers on a journey starting from historical pieces to contemporary works. It proposes a critical reading of the genealogy of encyclopedic museums, their role in the construction of a colonial, bourgeois, and extractivist narrative, and their possible futures. The exhibition is organized into thematic axes that address issues such as colonial memory, the role of the 1929 International Exhibition in shaping the Catalan museum system, or the repoliticization of community work. In this way, 'Museum Habitat' recovers forgotten memories and gives voice to subjectivities that have been systematically excluded. The exhibition offers possible approaches to the history of a museum model, as well as other ways of narrating landscapes, ways of inhabiting the museum, and conceiving other worlds. 'Narrating Landscapes' delves into the idea of landscape as a central element in culture and as separate from us. Enlightened thought has revealed itself as the separation between subject and object, the latter understood as something different from the individual, susceptible to exploitation. This is one of the ideas that underpin the project, which advocates for an institutional model that goes beyond simply guarding works but also accompanies, promotes, and makes visible diverse and communal cultural processes. At the Palau Victòria Eugènia, a series of artistic interventions are presented that reflect on the large international exhibitions that peaked in the final decades of the 19th century and the early 20th century, and their influence on our understanding of the world; as well as on visual representation through the interrelation of the notions of landscape, displacement, and identity. In Palau Moja, the exhibition explores the idea of memory, monument, and public space. "The verb 'inhabit' implies a way of being and existing in the world, an exploration that invites us to inspect the construction of the environment, both physical and mental, as a result of historical and therefore unfinished processes open to the possibility of difference," explains Manuel J. Borja-Villel, director of the Museum Habitat project of the Department of Culture of the Generalitat de Catalunya. Moreover, he comments, "the exhibition has a situated character and historical context, departing from the specific context of Barcelona, Europe, Spain, Catalonia, and, more specifically, Montjuïc. This territory has a complex historical significance: it has hosted major events such as Universal Exhibitions but has also been a space of silenced memory, such as that of people who lived there in shanties." The exhibition is the result of a long reflection initiated with the 'Museum Habitat. Overturning Enchantments' conference held in November 2024 at the Ateneu Barcelonès, where international figures, critical collectives, and various museum and cultural organizations gathered to imagine new institutional models. The conference explored how museums can go beyond their traditional role as guardians of a single perspective and inherited structures. The meeting fostered an exchange framework that is now taking tangible form through the exhibition. Own production. 80% of the exhibited works have been specifically produced for the project. They are works developed expressly for this context by artists who explore, from the archive to performance, the tensions of the present. The program supports situated, intersectional proposals with a strong critical dimension. Activities In the context of the exhibition, Museum Habitat programmed performative activations with artists such as Fatima Ouassak, Més que cures (Sortidor Civic Center, Poble Sec, June 13th) and Philip Rizk and Aline Motta (screening at the Cinematheque, June 20th). In the coming days, Aline Motta will participate with a performance at Hangar on June 28th at 7 pm, and Ariella Azoulay at The Cinematheque, presenting the trilogy 'Unlearning the imperial plunder', on September 10th and 16th at Sala Laya, at 6 pm. On the 16th, there will also be a dialogue between the artist and Carles Guerra. On September 25th, at the Barcelona Model, there will be a screening about the 1936 fascist uprising. The last week of the exhibition will feature the meeting 'Contradicting the abyss. Poetics of Scale' at the Tàpies Museum, on October 2nd, 3rd, and 4th. List of participating artists The exhibition features a diverse and transnational selection of artists, including: Associació de Dones Adrianes del Barri de La Mina, Efrén Álvarez, Paula Artés, Ariella Aïsha Azoulay, Sammy Baloji, David Bestué, Marilyn Boror Bor, Ahmed and Touda Bouanani, M'barek Bouhchichi, Claudia Claremi, Colectivo Ayllu, Cian Dayrit, Domènec, Lucía Egaña, El Palomar, Equipo Jeleton, Ikram Essaghir, Antonio Gagliano and Verónica Lahitte, Daniel García Andújar, Paula García-Masedo, Pocho Guimaraes, Lola Lasurt, Dan Lie, Aline Motta, Antoni Muntadas, Paulo Nazareth, Mabel Palacín, Carlos Pazos, Mercedes Pimiento, Jorge Ribalta, Philip Rizk, Adrián Schindler and Eulàlia Rovira, Dierk Schmidt, Llorenç Soler, Ceija Stojka and Oriol Vilanova among others. The exhibition also presents works, documents, and archives ranging from the 13th to the 20th century from private and public collections, and includes interventions by (Tr)african(t)s, Helios F. Garcés, and Miguel Angel Vargas.