Photographs belonging to the League of Catalonia campaign, Video-Nou, 1977
Exhibition
until 23.05.2027
Counter-Information: Video-Nou / Servei de Vídeo Comunitari
The Act of Filming: Video in the MACBA Collection
in progress
During the period in Spain known as the Transition, a group of young people formed a working platform that conceived of video as an experimental tool for political intervention and a social weapon of counter-information. This exhibition traces the trajectory of the Video-Nou collective and its subsequent transformation into the Servei de Vídeo Comunitari. Active in Catalonia between 1977 and 1983, the group challenged official narratives at a moment when the media continued to adhere to structures inherited from Francoism.
Embedded in the enthusiastic climate that characterized the early years of the Transition, the group developed a practice rooted in neighborhood and countercultural movements, educational processes, and urban struggles, positioning the camera as an instigator of collective debate and the reclaiming of speech. However, this initial impetus was progressively shadowed by disenchantment, exposing the persistence of authoritarian structures and the limits of political change. It was by inhabiting that tension with institutionality that their practice acquired critical density. Video-Nou’s transformation into the Servei de Vídeo Comunitari consolidated the use of video as a means of communication and in situ social intervention, where images are not an end in themselves but part of a process that includes their continuous return to and discussion within the community. In questioning the separation between senders and receivers, the collective exceeded and critiqued dominant modes of audiovisual communication.
Dissolving the boundaries between art, document and action, video is understood not as representation but as a tool and a relational field where images circulate and are negotiated and transformed, bearing directly on the production of the social.
artists
artists
2 artists
curated by
María Berríos 
Daniel Gasol
artists
2 artists
The Act of Filming: Video in the MACBA Collection explores the presence of video in the MACBA Collection by bringing together three moments and contexts linked to the moving image: material from the Video-Nou collective, later Servei de Vídeo Comunitari (active in Catalonia in the late 1970s and early 1980s); video works from the Han Nefkens Foundation donation (produced between 2012 and 2021); and a programme of screenings of films by Pere Portabella (produced between 1960 and 2020) as part of the “Acció Portabella” initiative marking his centenary.
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Activities
5 results
Total Democracy
Los Voluble, Juan Luis Matilla, Laura Morales, Teresa Garzón and Paula Quintana
Activity
Wednesday, 22 July, 2026
Guided visits to Counter-Information: Video-Nou / Servei de Vídeo Comunitari
Led by Albert Gironès, Ana Gnagui and Eva Paià
Activity
Every Sunday, from 19 July to 8 November 2026
Group and educational centres visits to Counter-Information: Video-Nou / Servei de Vídeo Comunitari
Secondary school, upper secondary school, vocational education and training (VET), special education, groups with disabilities, university groups and adult groups
Activity
From 20 July 2026
Group and educational centres visits to The act of filming: video in the MACBA Collection
Secondary school, upper secondary school, vocational education and training (VET), special education, groups with disabilities, university groups and adult groups
Activity
From 8 November 2026 to 23 May 2027
Narratives from a Collection: Memories, Violence, and Resistance
Secondary school, upper secondary school, vocational education and training (VET), special education, and groups with disabilities
Activity
From 4 November 2026 to 28 May 2027
Experience MACBA in good company
Enjoy our guided tours and experiences for groups to look at, discuss and connect with contemporary art, with the guidance of the museum’s team of educators.
gallery of images
6 images
MACBA Thirty
We celebrate Year Thirty of an infinite MACBA that projects the future as a space for revision and possibility: of taking up what was left unfinished, updating what needs it and projecting anew everything that can still be transformed.
