Caravana newspaper (.4)

Madrid, March 2024

In this fourth CARAVANA the aim is to generate a space for pause in which to think together about the aesthetic, political and personal implications of a productivist and finalist system that addresses us at every step we take. We want to learn again to conspire, that is, to breathe together. Also, it is a caravan that reflects, once again, what worries us, our state of mind, and those circumstances that, sometimes, make everything stop, inevitably, definitively.

“I'm going as fast I can”, “I'm overwhelmed”, “I don't have enough time”. Give time. Give yourself the time. The feeling is that of always lacking something, always in deficit, of not being enough, of not doing enough. A paralyzing impression that at times throws us back into the hamster wheel: perhaps if I go faster or focus better, the path will clear and I will be able to rest. And so, we accelerate the wheel, we demand an immediate result from everyone and everything, while we continue to be in the same place.

The acceleration of the environment become part of our bodies and we ourselves cannot move forward, we are stuck. The overwhelming task of dealing with the multiple responsibilities and demands of everyday life leads us to ask ourselves, what do we want from life beyond managing it? In a system that demands from us a level of adaptation and total acceptance, are there strategies to deviate from what is expected? How do we make obligations compatible with desires? How do we stop/have time?

In Caravana (.4) we include the following answers to these questions:

• Critical resistances essays by Juanpe Sánchez López (writer and researcher), Amalia Ruiz-Larrea and Eva Garrido (artists-educators) and DU-DA collective

• Reflections on the artistic residencies carried out at Planta Alta by Tara Carroll, Jorge Dutor and Guillem Mont de Palol and Colectivo Amasijo

• The artistic contribution of the Project Art Works, Cosmology of care

• Images and ideas linked to one of our public research programs: from now on. Meetings on infrastructure and work processes of artistic residencies.

• We dedicate the back cover to an image that emerges from the Yacimiento. Permacultures of dying project by Malú Cayetano and Amalia Ruiz Larrea.

You can download your copy of CARAVANA here.

Editors: hablarenarte

Graphic design: Nuria F. Herrera

Printing: New Graphic Forms Group

This newspaper is produced with the support of the grant for independent spaces of contemporary creation from the Madrid City Council in the 2022-2023 call.

Caravana and Planta Alta are possible thanks to the support of the Department of Culture, Tourism and Sports of the Region of Madrid.