Exhibition - Documentary Processes | MACBA Museum of Contemporary Art of Barcelona

13 June, 2001 to 22 July, 2001

Documentary Processes consisted of a selection of photographic and audiovisual works that explored the transformation of the documentary genre as a result of its hybridisation with narrative forms and media linked to the concept of testimony. Testimony is a literary genre that allows the voice of the subaltern classes access to the elites.

The works in the exhibition responded to a desire to construct images that visibilise the life processes and conditions of the subaltern classes. As such, it made reference to the specific geopolitical circumstances of the present, which include the consequences of de-industrialisation and the effects of economic globalisation on the memory of the working classes (Marcelo Expósito, Harun Farocki, Allan Sekula); the deterritorialisation of urban experience and the Disneyfication of public space (Andrea Robbins and Max Becher); the consequences of urban panning in diffuse cities through a working class neighbourhood in Barcelona (Patrick Faigenbaum and Joan Roca); the new forms of labour precariousness (Marc Pataut, Roy Arden); the cultural and social conflicts between the first and the third world (Ursula Biemann); and the crisis of services and public housing (Frederick Wiseman).

This exhibition, which formed part of the Barcelona Art-Report 2001. Experiències project, presented a selection of photographic and audio-visual works through which we can examine the changes in what is categorised as documentary based on its hybridisation with forms of narrative and mediation which come from the concept of testimonio. Testimonio is a literary genre through which the voice of the subaltern classes is made accessible to the elites.
The works in the exhibition grew from a will to construct images in which the historical and geopolitical conditions that some subaltern groups are living in today become visible. Circumstances such as the consequences of de-industrialisation and the effects of economic globalisation on the collective memory of the working classes (Marcelo Expósito, Harun Farocki, Allan Sekula); the deterritorialisation of the urban experience and the disneyfication of public spaces (Andrea Robbins and Max Becher); the effects that town planning in a sprawling European town like Barcelona has on a working class district (Patrick Faigenbaum and Joan Roca); the new kinds of precarious working conditions (Marc Pataut, Roy Arden); cultural and social conflicts between the first and the third world (Ursula Biemann); the crisis of the service industries and public housing (Frederick Wiseman).