Processos_Oberts. Complot. A cura de Manuel Olveira. Terrassa, 2004

PROCESSOS OBERTS (P_O_) Organized by: Ajuntament de Terrassa Various locations, Terrassa P_O_1/ 2004. Curator: Manuel Olveira P_O_2/ 2005. Curator: Amanda Cuesta P_O_3/ 2006. Curator: Àlex Mitrani / Eduardo Pérez Soler P_O_4/ 2007. Curator: David Armengol / Martí Manen MICA                                                                                                 20 MAY – 1 JUL 2006 Museu Miquel Casablancas in the Museu Històricsocial de la Maquinista Terrestre i Marítima i Macosa Artists: Ana Álvarez-Errecalde, Eli Fontarnau, Enrique Lista, Juan López, Telmo Moreno, Mónica Cabo, Ana García Pineda, Jonathan Millán, Martín Plante, Jorge Satorre, Manu Uranga, Usúe Arrieta, Karmelo Bermejo, María das Dores Berthomé, Luis Bezeta, Alejandro Canovas, Miquel García Curators: David Armengol/Manuel Segade

In its aim of bringing to light invisible structures in the creative process, deconstructing systems of representation and translating the ‘exhibition’ form into a format closer to that of an information archive, Processos Oberts, launched in 2004, is one of the projects that has consolidated the importance of the process of production in art practices in recent years, and, to its greater credit, has done so from the non-metropolitan local context of Terrassa, a town whose political executive is still, in this, the project’s fourth year, prepared to risk sacrificing points of immediate visibility in order to create a space of dialogue open to criticism.

Processos Oberts (P_O_) is not an exhibition project. Similar to Cork Caucus, launched in 2005 in the Irish city of Cork by Charles Esche and Annie Fletcher and taking as its inspiration the approach pioneered by Artangel, P_O_ sees itself as an encounter on the basis of presentations, workshops, exhibitions and informal get-togethers, and the primary focus of the model is the production of works with a definite sense of place in different public spaces around the town of Terrassa and to make this production visible by way of a series of activities and an interactive website. A project from which to devise new structures that can be established in alternative ways and engaging directly with the wishes of the people themselves. In addition, the idea of P_O_ offers the possibility of forming part of a group, with the option of taking part in this encounter as an active member and, of course, in an entirely open and un-restricted way, even though this depends to some extent on the size of audience.

It was precisely this interest in analyzing the various organizational models, the artistic contexts that coexist in the creative sphere and the processes of work the Marti Manen engaged with in L'estat de els estructures in the winter of 2004 in a series of parallel seminars in Hangar Obert.

Another new approach to the exhibition format was MICA, the Museu Miquel Casablancas proposed by David Armengol and Manuel Segade as a parallel activity accompanying the Premi Miquel Casablancas prize in 2006, an exhibition project exhibitive that steered clear of specific curatorial positions and placed the discursive emphasis on the elaboration of the museum as such. The museological approach of the MICA was defined specifically in terms of the impossibility of continuity, thus making it possible to work without the weight of history or of memory that the museum usually has to bear, and to make use of the different models of presentation and reflection that the institution accommodates: exhibitions, lectures or specific one-off events. The result was a micro-programme that, over a number of weeks, generated a broad spectrum of art initiatives (both discursive and exhibitive of relational) in which the key element was the event, effectively making the space of the Museu Històricsocial de la Maquinista Terrestre i Marítima i Macosa, home of the MICA, a place in which leisure went hand in hand with knowledge.
These two projects —alongside others launched in the last few years such as Radiofonies (2003), INTERFERÈNCIES (2004), UMPA (2004), SAFU (2005), VERSUS (2006), RUMPITE LLIBRES (2007) and the majority of the projects hosted by the Consulta space at the CASM— fully reflect the desire to experiment beyond the bounds of the exhibition, in which the format is a attitude in its own right that opens up other possibilities of access to contemporary art practices.