Alleged opposites: On the public sphere, art and the clinic Research working group

Since 2002, MACBA has brought together professionals from the fields of psychoanalysis, art therapy and anthropology with the aim of generating innovative formulations that are adapted to the use of artistic productions. The aim of Alleged opposites is to give visibility to these projects, question them, and theoretically adapt the results arising from these applications.

The working group is led by Montserrat Rodríguez and Eva Marxen, with the participation of the artists Ignasi Aballí and Dora García, the psychoanalyst Shula Eldar and the anthropologist Ángel Martínez.

Montserrat Rodríquez's approach is the result of her research into the mechanics of language creation processes, the consistency of artistic production and the logic underlying social ties, arising from psychoanalytic practice with users or patients of mental health centres in Barcelona and its surrounding areas. This process began in 2002.

Eva Marxen's project is based on the use of art therapy with a psychoanalytic slant and an anthropological understanding. It began in 2003 at educational centres in the Raval with teenagers who had been labelled 'at risk of social exclusion.' The project started with the creation of the necessary conditions (Winnicott's 'potential space') for subjective work aimed at maintaining the capacity for symbolisation.

The practices took place in a public space – specifically, MACBA –, and they were based on an exploration of image construction processes and the social formations that arise from these practices. The points of intersection between analytic and the art-therapeutic devices are the use of imagery and the fact that the work takes place with groups that are politically positioned on the margins of the social.