In the Open or in Stealth The Unruly Presence of an Intimate Future

It is said that we know more about far-away galaxies than we do about the bottom of the earth’s oceans. One could say something similar about our relationship to the future. The distant future can seem more familiar than the deep present.
We are surrounded by an expressive and infinite plurality of possibilities. A line, as we know from mathematics, does not necessarily have to end. It is the future advancing upon us, or the past receding. Seen differently, a line can become a still point, and the junction for an infinite number of other lines, other possibilities. A line can become a wave. A wave can become an ocean. Beachcombing the seafloor in submarine darkness is art’s calling.

This exhibition, curated by Raqs Media Collective, will be a multi-layered site of discovery that explores the concept of a future in which multiple histories and geographies are placed in dialogue, giving way to a plurality of possibilities and queries by following paths that interlace, entwine and expose relations between objects, feelings and concepts, while simultaneously tracing indeterminate spaces between them.

An extension of the exhibition will be a mediation programme – titled the Personae Project – which will explore the urban fabric of our society through real-life stories of Barcelona’s diverse inhabitants, giving us a glimpse into numerous facets of the city’s multifarious surface. The project puts the Museum in dialogue with the city, resulting in a collection of urban chronicles in the form of an online publication and a series of informal encounters. Through the stories of others, we reflect on our own lives and, in some sense, gain an understanding of the way we live together and explore possibilities of how we can improve.

Raqs Media Collective was founded in 1992 by Jeebesh Bagchi, Monica Narula and Shuddhabrata Sengupta. Raqs are artists, curators, researchers, editors and philosophical agents provocateurs. The Collective’s work addresses connectedness, temporality and plenitude, and places them at the intersection of art, historical enquiry and philosophical speculation. Raqs Media Collective has exhibited internationally to wide acclaim, and as curators most recently for the 11th Shanghai Biennale in 2016.

Artists: Rosa Barba, Jeamin Cha, Mark Chung, Rohini Devasher, Marzia Farhana, Liao Fei, Ivana Franke, John Gerrard, Rupali Gupte and Prasad Shetty, Abhishek Hazra, Geumhyung Jeong, Hassan Khan, Charles Lim, Cristina Lucas, Kabelo Malatsie, Dillon Marsh, Huma Mulji, Mehreen Murtaza, Joe Nishizawa, Nontsikelelo Mutiti, Bahar Noorizadeh, Lucy Parker, Bhagwati Prasad, Racter, Santiago Ramón y Cajal, Raqs Media Collective, Muhannad Shono, Lantian Xie, Tito Zungu.

Curators: Raqs Media Collective
Curatorial Collegiate: Sabih Ahmed (Asia Art Archive) and Hiuwai Chu (MACBA)