Mèdol presents the 2023 program with around fifty multidisciplinary proposals

On January 24, the program for the new season of the Contemporary Arts Center of Tarragona Mèdol was presented with mediation and programming as engines of artistic production. In the program it is worth highlighting the projects of disruptive cooperation that integrate artists from different disciplines, and in which organizations and collectives from the social fabric often also take center stage. The result is around fifty multidisciplinary proposals where drawing, painting, dance, digital art, installations, poetry and music coexist, and which offer a new, composite look at the transformative power of culture.

Tarragona City Council's Minister of Culture, Inés Solé, explained that Mèdol's vocation is to fit into the environment, break the isolation of creative processes and provoke disruptive innovation based on cooperation . Solé pointed out that "the strategy is to connect artists and promote processes with public participation. Mèdol acts as a bridge between creators and society. It radiates activities beyond Casa Canals and weaves collaborations with all kinds of entities, not only those with a cultural object".

During 2023, new activities will see the light of day as a result of collaboration with different groups: the Ebrelumen videomapping festival and Alvaro Sola's performance, as part of the Tarragona Sona Flamenc festival, both in March; the exhibition in April of the work of different artists integrated into the GN.TGN collective; the second edition of LGBTInferno, the GSD art and counterculture convention; and Volta / revolt: in collaboration with the Museum of History of Tarragona.

The relationship and cooperation with the environment is one of the Center's work axes. And in fact, most of the artists who are part of the 2023 poster live or have a very close relationship with the regions of Tarragona. Vicent Fibla explained that "at Mèdol we want to echo the creative trends at an international level. To touch on the topics and techniques that are being used all over the world but, at the same time, using an own and local perspective”.

Exhibition schedule for 2023

Mèdol's program for this 2023 is structured around five main exhibitions in the Les Golfes space of Casa Canals. The first of these samples was born precisely from the collaboration between the artist Fito Conesa and a choir made up of anonymous people and artificial intelligence. As part of the Ones de Resistència project, Mèdol convened through the networks a composition and singing session with volunteers as protagonists. Conducted and modulated by Conesa, the recordings make it possible to address everyday aspects such as silenced stories, the landscape in continuous transformation and melodies on the brink of extinction. The sound exhibition can be seen from February 9 to April 9. Around Sant Jordi, a solo exhibition by the artist Marc Sellarès, Memòria, will take over from Ones de Resistència. The exhibition, with a denunciation tone, is part of Cultura Verda, a project started in 2021 in Tarragona and curated by Freya Day that aims to raise awareness about sustainability and ecological thinking.

The Sellarés exhibition can be seen until July, at which point it will give way to the CaldodeCultivo exhibition. Resistance exercises. Tarragona Unai Reglero and Gabriela Córdoba, the artistic couple of CaldodeCultivo, work with media ranging from installation to video to critically confront neoliberal propaganda.

The fourth exhibition at Les Golfes will be a solo exhibition by Susanna Inglada. The artist from Banyeres del Penedès has developed his own style that has earned him international prestige: he filters current events and illustrates the contradictions of the Western world by constructing abstract characters from fragments and scraps using the drawing technique. The fifth and last exhibition of the year at the Golfes space will be the collaboration with the SCAN festival, which from 2022 will be held annually.

Other activities

Just like last year, Casa Canals will host, in parallel to the exhibitions in the Lofts, different alternative artistic stories in the Espai L. From February to August we will be able to see the exhibitions and activities curated by the La Trastera collective (Calafell). And in the second half of the year, Espai L will generate the Murs Enllà mediation project, curated by Cèlia del Diego, an initiative that aims to create links with the Women's Module of the Mas d'Enric del Catllar Penitentiary Center and which will have with the participation of the interns.

As for the activities, once a month, from May to October, El que queda apres (Trace, signal and residue) will be carried out, a set of actions that has put to work different artists (among them, Santiago Sierra or Susana Solano) under the curatorship of Fernando Gómez de la Cuesta, and the remainder of which will take on exhibition form at the beginning of 2024; the weekend of March 17 and 18 will be the turn of a new proposal, Poessia, a show of poetry and music from the transgression that will have the participation of Maria Sevilla or Miriam Reyes, among other artists.

June will see the second edition of Espais Inerts, the arts in motion festival curated by Marta Oliveres that highlights the performative heritage and which takes place in the streets and unusual stages of the city of Tarragona. Another novelty will be the Volta / revolta project: in collaboration with the Museum of History of Tarragona. This proposal stems from the reinterpretation of the city's Roman heritage from a contemporary perspective.

Balance of the first year of Mèdol

Over the course of 2022, almost 12,000 people have passed through the exhibitions and scheduled activities, be it through the main headquarters of Casa Canals, Module 6 of Tabacalera, Plaça del Fòrum or the various educational facilities. The activities with the most public have been the exhibition Wartime! (2,328 visitors) and La Coentor, individual by the painter Ivan Forcadell (2,314 visitors).

Both the Minister of Culture, Inés Solé, and the director of the Centre, Vicent Fibla, have positively assessed the public's response during what has been the first year of stable programming and have commented that "we practically started from the same ground in terms of proposals of contemporary arts and we are building solid foundations. Mutual recognition with the public and the environment, as well as continuing to act as a link between creators will make the project grow."