Independent Studies Programme, 2023 – 2024 Edition

Titled Where are the Oases?, this new edition of the PEI aims to analyse the notion of oasisas a space of ideological resistance and generation of shared knowledge. In a clear allusion to the geographical poetics of Édouard Glissant, in which context is the essence of writing and political action, this PEI is established as an archipelago, networked and decentralised; as a series of self-sufficient and interconnected modules, which expand the Museum’s desire to connect a community that extends beyond the group of face-to-face participants in Barcelona.

Where are the Oases?
9th editon presentation
Where are the Oases?
The conceptual proposal is articulated around the transmission of knowledge and pedagogical formulas that emerge from the intersection between theory, activism and artistic, decolonial, trans-feminist and anti-racist practices. Asking the question Where Are the Oases? means recognising that we are experiencing a process of climate, social and political desertification. We live in an environment that incessantly develops characteristics adverse to life. Neoliberal capitalism and its logic of accumulation through the maximum possible exploitation of natural and human resources is a system that manages death in order to monetise life. The collapse of the environment, the profound public health crisis, the culture of hate and the permanent state of war that define the geopolitics of the present threaten what remains of the promise of a free world and a good life. The next Independent Studies Programme (IEP) will have a conceptual direction shared between Max Jorge Hinderer Cruz, Bolivian-German writer, curator and philosopher, he has been the artistic director of the Akademie der Künste der Welt, Cologne and of the Museo Nacional de Arte (MNA), La Paz, Bolivia; Kader Attia, an artist who grew up between France and Algeria, curator of the 2022 Berlin Biennale and founder of La Colonie, Paris, in 2016; and Elvira Dyangani Ose, Director of MACBA.
Programme
Programme
The program of the 9th edition proposes a critical reflection on the different editions and formats of the PEI, while maintaining and updating its functions as a tool for learning and institutional critique. The question “Where are the oases?” brings together the contents and formats of this edition, highlighting the exhaustion of a resource extraction system that has nurtured capitalism since its colonial history and its responsibility for the current global, climate, ecological and human crises. The different activities include exploring the spaces for critical freedom that have withstood in art and collective agency based on decolonial thought and practice. The program also seeks to find within its methodologies political tools to react against the growing forms of violence, systemic racism, inequality and control. The program consists of three transversal pillars. The Political Culture Program, led by Max Jorge Hinderer Cruz, The Nomadic Colonie, led by Kader Attia and finally, From Other Institutional Imaginaries, led by Elvira Dyangani Ose together with María Berríos. Each pillar unfolds in interrelation with subjects and conceptual modules whose contents are formulated through the intersection between theory, activism and artistic practice. The program features different formats of varying intensity in PEI OBERT: meetings, conferences, workshops and international seminars open to the public.
With the support of
TRANSVERSAL PILLARS
TRANSVERSAL PILLARS

What are the necessary conditions to constitute an institutional imaginary? What mechanisms does history provide us with to build such institutions? What forms of collectivity or togetherness emerge from these processes? In a clear desire to redefine the notion of ‘Museum’, this pillar utilizes a series of case studies to reflect on institutional, para-institutional and collective forms which have taken place, are being gestated and are imagined both inside and outside the West. Processes of ancestral communality, socio-political ritual manifestations, and other formulas of cultural governance serve as tools and starting points for this upcoming institution and its consequent social imaginaries. This pillar is especially related to the participants invited to the modules on Technologies of Emancipation and Methodologies of Collective Creation.

The PCP is a laboratory of thought dedicated to reconsidering and materializing culture as an indispensable tool to contribute to the processes and practices that shape life, economy and politics. It emerged in La Paz in 2019, led by Claudia Pacheco Araoz and Max Jorge Hinderer Cruz. In this updated version at the PEI, the PCP will focus on decolonial practices and discourses through seminars, workshops and collective research, especially related to the modules entitled About the Forms and Decrease, party and culture.

The Nomadic Colonie is a version of La Colonie specifically activated for the PEI. La Colonie is a meeting place to share life skills and knowledge that was created in Paris in 2016. Striving to reflect on how modernity has erased and continues to reduce the interstitial spaces of freedom that we call oases, we planned The Nomadic Colonie to nurture and keep the networks of free thought that bind them together active. This open space for meeting and exchange will bring together teachers of the program, local agents and specific guests, both inside and outside the museum space, to talk through actions and theoretical exchanges, from rational theory to irrational experience.

The Nomadic Colonie is developed in internal dialogue with the PEI’s general program, exploring the complex architecture of the natural, cultural, psychological and political environments. The conversations will address the following topics throughout the program: Restitution, Peace and War: The Bandung of the North, Decolonial Ecology, and The oxymorons of reason: mental health and spiritual inheritances.
CONCEPTUAL MODULES
CONCEPTUAL MODULES

This module is a proposal to approach what it means to “decolonize art” from a historical review of the forms of production and forms of perception of art from the sixteenth to the twenty-first century. The seminar proposes researching the forms that organize life, production and perception. “About the Forms” understands the perception of art forms as a field of intersection between the forms of production of value and the political forms that regulate the relationship between society and state.

This module explores the interrelationship of culture with economic models: from the neoliberal economic model, in what has been called cognitive capitalism, characterized by the centrality of immaterial dimensions in the processes of accumulation and production of value, to the drift towards post-capitalist forms based on the complexity of information technologies. During the course we will investigate the subversive capacity of other formats and case studies concerning non-speculative economies, artistic and popular proposals, and their responses from other geopolitical positions. The party, understood from the conceptual triad between economy, spirituality and culture, circular economies, ecofeminism, activisms related to the economic decrease and “el vivir sabroso” will all be addressed.

This module brings together three major interdependent lines of work, including the relationships between organisms and environments, and the ways in which they affect the distribution and abundance of their ecosystems. First, we start from political ecology understood as the interrelationship between the resource extraction-based economy and the climate crisis. Second, the consequences on social ecology, the migratory waves resulting from scarcity and war, the right to the city and the condition of citizenship will all be addressed. Third, the course will address how the diversity of subjectivities is redefined in a digital ecosystem, both in terms of control but also of possibility. We will discuss topics ranging from the free circulation of knowledge to the opening to other approaches regarding mental health and spiritual practices.

This module studies the complex theoretical legacy of body politics, as well as its capacity for collective enunciation, in its interrelationship with anti-racist practices, black studies, currents of feminism, queer, trans and crip theory.

This module explores the link between artistic activity and its research and production methodologies, with different forms of activism. Special attention is placed on the forms of collective action, its tools to create platforms and new imaginaries, focusing on case studies that go further than certain notions that are used by artistic and political activists.
Methodology and formats
Methodology and formats
The PEI returns for a 14-month program, from March 2023 to June 2024, organized in three teaching periods and a final period dedicated to formalizing and presenting personal and collective research. The teaching formats are diverse and flexible, such as single-issue courses, talks, workshops, urban tours, collective reading spaces, celebrations, master classes and international seminars. The PEI Oberts seminars take place every trimester and focus intensely on a specific theme. In addition, other formats such as workshops and courses will have open places for the public and specific local groups. In turn, the museum’s exhibitions and relevant guests from MACBA’s public program serve as case studies and underpin different areas of work in the PEI.
Activities
20 results
Mayra A. Rodríguez Castro: Chrysalises
Open PEI
Activity
Thursday, March 21, 2024
Trafficking in Knowledge
Open PEI seminar with Iris Torruella, Antonio Monroy, Lucía Taibo, Manuela Pereira, Rodrigo Yrigoyen, Ximena Puppo, Thais De Menezes, Iagor Peres, Wafa Aoun, Mariana Orantes and Feña Celedón
Activity
Saturday, February 24, 2024
Vijay Prashad: The Cultural Struggle in a Planet Between Decay and Hope 
Open PEI seminar
Activity
Thursday, March 7, 2024
Nancy Garín: From the River to the Sea, the Songs We Must Hear
Open PEI seminar with Mohamad Bitari, Nadia Jabr, Samira Badran, Lina Meruane, Hache Mau and co-conspirators
Activity
Friday, March 1, 2024
Trafficking in Knowledge
Open PEI seminar with Salima Jirari, Luiza Fagá, Yazel Parra, Tania Libertad, elisa ortega, andi icaza, Juan Pablo Velásquez, Thais De Menezes, Iagor Peres, Feña Herrada, Efecto Desarme, Marcos Krämer, Lluís Vecina and Mariana Orantes
Activity
Saturday, March 16, 2024
Trafficking in Knowledge. Nendo Dango Workshop
Open PEI seminar. An activity run by Hacer t/Tierra (Paloma Stafford, Iris Torruella and Antonio Monroy), in collaboration with Mobile Garden
Activity
Saturday, February 24, 2024
Marwa Arsanios: Towards Relations of Usership
Open PEI seminar 
Activity
Friday, February 23, 2024
Emily Jacir: Translational localities. The politics of land, food, planting and community 
Open PEI seminar
Activity
Thursday, February 22, 2024
Tania Safura Adam
Tania Safura Adam: Black Solidarity Communities
Open PEI seminar 
Activity
Thursday, February 15, 2024
Bandung of the North: Revolutionary Peace, from Palestine to the world and from the world to Palestine
Activity
Friday, December 15, 2023
Anti-imperialism in the 20th century and anti-imperialism today: similarities and differences
Lecture by Ramón Grosfoguel
Activity
Thursday, December 14, 2023
Presentation of the book Kathrin Böhm: Art on the Scale of Life
Conversation with Elvira Dyangani Ose and Kathrin Böhm
Activity
Tuesday, November 21, 2023
Can the Subaltern write?
Lecture by Coco Fusco
Activity
Thursday, October 26, 2023
Photo of Claudia Pacheco Araoz and Max Jorge Hinderer Cruz
PCP – Programa Cultura Política
With Claudia Pacheco Araoz and Max Jorge Hinderer Cruz
Activity
Monday, October 9, 2023
Campaign image of the seminar Where are the oases session 3
Kader Attia, Sarah Nuttall and Françoise Vergès
Where are the Oases? PEI OBERT seminar
Activity
Friday, April, 14, 2023 
Campaign image of the seminar Where are the oases session 2
Max Jorge Hinderer, Emily Jacir and Elvira Dyangani Ose
Where are the Oases? PEI OBERT seminar
Activity
Thursday, April 13, 2023 
Campaign image of the seminar Where are the oases?
Where are the Oases?
PEI OBERT seminar
Activity
April 12, 13 and 14, 2023 
Campaign image of the seminar Where are the oases session 1
Achille Mbembe
Where are the Oases? PEI OBERT seminar
Activity
Wednesday, April 12, 2023 
Mutual Nurture of the Arts
With Elvira Espejo Ayca
Activity
Thursday, March 30, 2023
Mediaturgias, operaciones de montaje y etnoficciones
With Heidi and Rolf Abderhalden
Activity
Friday, March 17, 2023
pei obert
PEI Obert, 2023-2024 Edition
Watch and listen
Aimed at
who can participate?
Aimed at
People from a range of educational and professional backgrounds and origins (artists, architects, historians, sociologists, anthropologists, activists, curators, psychologists and others) who share an interest in studying as a collective learning experience. The programme is open to people of all ages and there is no need for prior qualifications. Value will be placed on life, academic and professional experience that will contribute to the group as a whole.
Provisional list. Unless otherwise specified, participation is on-site. In case of unexpected situations, online participation will be possible.
Collectives with whom we propose to work: Archivo Ovni, Equipo Palomar, Kas Kultural Arts Society (Awa Konaté), Diversorium (Antonio Centeno, María Oliver and Veronica Valentini), Living Commons, Cooperativa Periferia Cimarronas, Radio Cavaret, Ràdio Web MACBA, Red Pluridiversidad Nómada, among many others.
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FAQ

This is an in-person programme that will require considerable dedication on your part, as sessions will be run four afternoons a week from 4.00 to 7.00 pm. It is structured on a monthly basis, with three consecutive weeks of teaching followed by one with no classes. In addition, you will need time for reading and study and for meetings with research groups, plus there will be occasional open seminars at the weekend. The teaching is organised into four quarters, with holiday breaks in December and in July and August. The last quarter will be given over to your end-of-course project.

The programme is not associated with a university, so no qualifications or diplomas are awarded. During the course, presentations of the state of research projects are made and processes are shared. In addition, individual studies benefit from the guidance of group tutorials. End-of-course projects are presented publicly to fellow students, PEI staff, project tutors and guests that you invite. After the presentation, tutors will give written feedback on the working process. At the end of the PEI, students will receive a certificate signed by the MACBA.

The course lasts twelve to fourteen calendar months and is divided into four quarters. The holiday breaks are: July and August for the summer holiday; for Christmas; and for Easter. More information will be available when the course starts.

To calculate how much money you will need to cover your basic costs during your time in Barcelona, bear in mind that rent, food, transport and leisure may amount to between €800 and €1,200 a month. The average cost for a room in a shared flat is €400-600.

Accommodation in Barcelona has become more expensive in recent years and it is difficult to find flats to rent and/or flats shared with other students. The following websites give information about the various accommodation options:

¿Dónde puedes buscar una vivienda?
Habitatge jove
Barcelona Student Housing
Fundació Roure, Viure i conviure

The public transport network in Barcelona is extensive and the city is accessible and easy to navigate. In addition to the Metro and bus services, Barcelona is connected to the surrounding region by a rail network and a tram that travels along Avinguda Diagonal to places on the outskirts. There are numerous cycle lanes. If cycling is your preferred means of transport, you will be able to find second-hand bikes or use the Bicing (bicycle sharing) service. One piece of advice: leave your bike (and the wheels) chained up.

The T-casual is a non-transferrable pass valid for ten integrated journeys in the metropolitan area of Barcelona. It costs €11.35.

The T-usual is a monthly Barcelona transport pass. It is non-transferrable and is valid for an unlimited number of journeys on 30 consecutive days starting from your first journey. It costs €40 and can be used on buses, the Metro and the tram and in zone 1 of the Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat and the Cercanías de Renfe train networks.

Barcelona is a safe city and has lots of tourists. Even so, thefts of handbags and backpacks are frequent at outdoor tables of bars, inside restaurants and on the Metro. Bicycles must always be left chained up and it is advisable to do the same with the wheels. In the event of the loss or theft of your personal documents, you must report this at a police station. Emergency phone number:

Emergency phone number: 112
Police phone number: 091
Other emergency phone numberswww.barcelona.cat

Immigration issues

To remain legally in Spain, you need to obtain the legal student residency permit (NIE). This document authorises you to live in Spain during your period of study and also enables you to travel throughout the European Union and in countries that have signed agreements with Spain or the European Union allowing the free movement of persons.

Before arriving in Spain, you must apply for a ‘study visa’ at the Spanish consulates or embassy in your country of origin or place of legal residence. You will have to supply documentation proving you have been accepted on a study programme. Check this website to find your nearest consulate or embassy: Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

It is essential that your visa is a study visa (type D). No other type of visa entitles you to apply for a student residency permit. When you arrive in Spain, you must visit the National Police station within 30 days of your arrival in Spain in order to apply for your student residency permit (TIE).

Application form EX. 17 (original and one copy)
– Valid passport (original and one copy)
– Tasa pagada Modelo 790. Código 012.
– Proof of fee payment Model 790 form. Code 012. Model
– Type D study visa (original and one copy)
– Stamp in your passport on entry to the EU or plane ticket/boarding card (original and one copy)
– Acceptance-enrolment letter from the study centre specifying the length of your course (original and one copy)
– Enrolment and proof of payment (original and one copy)
– Three passport-size photographs in colour against a white background
– Up-to-date certificate of residency registration with your local authority issued within the last three months (‘no fixed abode’ certificates of registration will be accepted)
– Proof of sufficient financial resources to cover your stay, such as: grant certificate, proof of payment into bank or other proof (original and one copy)
– Medical insurance and policy (original and one copy)
– Medical certificate
– Negative criminal record check issued by the authorities in your country of origin or the country where you have resided for the last five years

The Immigration Act is subject to ongoing amendments. It is essential that you raise any queries you may have at your Spanish consulate or embassy, where they will be able to provide you with full information.

Students from a member state of the European Union do not need to apply for visas or a student card before arriving in Spain, as they already have the right to free circulation and to reside in Spain.

However, all students from an EU member state who will be staying in Spain for more than three months must apply for inclusion on the Central Foreigners Registry, as a result of which they will receive a registration certificate and a Foreigner’s Identity Number (NIE).

This registration must be done in person at the National Police station in the city where you live. You can request an appointment in advance here.

Application form EX.18
– Valid passport or proof of identity (original and copy)
– Enrolment at the study centre (original and copy)
– European health card or private health insurance that covers all risks in Spain throughout the study period (original and copy). In the event that the policy has been taken out in your country of origin, you must also supply a translation.
– An affidavit confirming you have sufficient financial resources to cover your stay in Spain. Participation in EU study exchange programmes is regarded as sufficient justification of financial resources.
– Fee 790. Code 012. (€12) Option ‘EU resident registration certificate’ or ‘Residency card as a relative of an EU citizen’.

Current legislation allows students to work on a study visa and legal student residency permit (student’s NIE) so long as you are not in full-time employment (maximum of twenty hours a week permitted) to ensure this does not interfere with your studies.
Contact
For more information you can contact us through any of the next channels.
for further information
pei@macba.cat +34 93 481 79 05