I M P What do we understand by collaborative artistic practices in Collaboration Spain? After three years of research, this publication bears witness to the diversity of points of view and opinions by Spanish artists and key agents working in this fi eld. Our aim in bringing these voices together in a single publication is that they will add to the already Context existing discussion in English and will infl uence future theoretical discourses more broadly. O S S Impossible Glossary is published within the framework of CAPP Work (Collaborative Arts Partnership Programme, 2014–18). The cultural association hablarenarte is the Spanish co-organizer of this European project. I B AuthorshipL Trust E Failure G L Return O Agents S S Institution A Autonomy R Y Impossible Glossary In September 2013, when we received an invitation from the Irish agency Create to participate as members of the European Collaborative Arts Partnership Programme (CAPP), we saw this project as a unique opportunity to work on both the practice and theory of the notion of collaborative artistic practice in Spain. With the support of Acción Cultural Española (AC/E), we created a national network in parallel to that of Europe, comprised of four Spanish art centers from different autonomous communities: ACVic (Vic, Catalonia), Centro Huarte (Huarte, Navarra), Medialab Prado (Madrid), and Tabakalera (San Sebastián, Basque Country). Together, we generated a four-year program that ranged from research residencies to workshops, seminars, and support for artistic production, in order to foster the development of links between Spanish creators and institutions, and their counterparts in other regions of Europe. In initial conversations with our international partners at CAPP, we also realized that, in the English-speaking world, theories about these practices had been under development for years. This knowledge, however, had not yet fully reached the Spanish-speaking world. One important explanation for this absence of discourse on collaborative practice is the lack of Spanish translations of key texts from the English- speaking debate as well as an almost complete absence of English translations of Spanish writing on this subject. This realization sparked the idea of accompanying the CAPP project’s activities with a theoretical framework that would serve to reflect current debate on this type of practice in Spain. We invited a group of artists, theorists, and activists to review the subject from different standpoints and decided to publish the Impossible Glossary in two editions—Spanish and English—to give voice to the Spanish context in the international setting. It is our hope that this work will help contrast our debate with 5 that of other countries—both those within the CAPP network (Germany, of common knowledge, co-edited by the Museum of Modern Art plus Finland, Hungary, England, and Ireland) and the rest of the world. Museum of Contemporary Art Metelkova (MG+MSUM). These last two arose within the framework of the European project l’Internationale. But In 2015, when we began our research for the Impossible Glossary, we our publication also contributes an important processual component by found that interest in this subject had grown in recent years, especially characterizing itself as “impossible.” Our intention with this book is that since the emergence in current politics of certain ideas associated with the more than thirty voices contained herein, would faithfully reflect the the 15-M Movement (for example, calls for greater popular participation discursive discrepancy surrounding this subject. in political decision-making that have resulted in public and participative consultation systems introduced by Ahora Madrid and Barcelona en Comú Our contribution to this budding debate is therefore not to settle matters in their respective cities). It is now common, almost across the board, to with a canonical definition but rather to use the platform and resources speak of collaborative practices and participative mechanisms in all areas generated by our participation in the CAPP network to offer a view of the of our society. In the area of culture, institutions have begun to launch breadth and variety of viewpoints and opinions held by creators and other participative proposals, and there is a tendency to underwrite collaborative relevant agents currently working in this field. We are confident that our art projects that will have social repercussions. At the same time, cultural effort in bringing together all of these voices in a single publication will help agents and the educational and pedagogical avant-garde, business leaders, to structure future theoretical discussions on collaborative practices, and and, of course, supporters of direct democracy—both populists and that the debate, which until now has been limited to ourselves, the authors, progressives—have lately been speaking of collaborative or peer-to-peer and the interviewees, will branch out and generate new conclusions and practices, cooperation, and participation as the preferred approach to initiatives that, in the long run, contribute to create our own body of theory solving a multitude of problems. This jargon draws fundamentally on social to complement that of to the English-speaking discourse. (hea) and activist practices and on an interest in the commons. The result of this discursive interference is a surreptitious cacophony: while we may all appear to be talking about the same thing, it is not the case. This is the consideration underlying the title of our publication. It is indeed a glossary, as at first glance it follows the classical format of definitions or references to words that are all related to the same specific subject or discipline. In June 2016, we presented a digital first edition with texts and interviews related to the terms agents, autonomy, authorship, context, collaboration, work, and return. This material constitutes the basis for the present print edition, in which some of the contents of the digital version have been modified and new keywords—trust, failure, and institution— have been added. Our publication thus joins other glossaries and dictionaries such as Subtramas’ Abecedario anagramático (Anagramatic ABC); Toward a Lexicon of Usership, edited by Stephen Wright for the Van Abbemuseum on the occasion of Tania Bruguera’s Museum of Arte Útil; and the glossary 6 7 Impossible Glossary Collaboration / p. 11 Context / p. 35 Work / p. 59 Authorship / p. 85 Trust / p. 113 Failure / p. 141 Return / p. 165 Agents / p. 187 Institution / p. 215 Autonomy / p. 245 Impossible Glossary Collaboration Collaboration Visionaries, Authors, and Mediators: Approaches to Collaboration hablarenarte All the authors in this compendium were invited to participate because of their close ties to collaborative practices. But an attentive reading of the Impossible Glossary reveals the controversy surrounding the word collaboration itself. Despite differing and sometimes opposing concepts of this key term, another common denominator seems to appear: all of the authors share an interest in the social and in working with a given context, through there practice. This form of working suggests an approach to groups of heterogeneous agents to generate shared work. In the texts that make up this book, we have observed that these approaches generally take three forms: some seek the greatest possible horizontality, defining their practice with a clear use of mediation and education. Others have a stronger sense of authorship and use collaborative processes to shape it. Still others want their work to generate social or political change that extends beyond the concrete project. Collaborative practice in art contexts thus emerges as a “tool” customarily employed by an artist, institution, or, less frequently, a community to propose work with an “other” who normally comes from different social or professional strata. In order for this community of heterogeneous collaborators to become more than a artificially connected group of individuals, there has to be a basis of trust and a shared goal. At the same time, we cannot take this basis for granted as something intrinsic to members of such a group. In order for a collaboration to bear fruit, therefore, its promoter must be capable of fostering this trust and interest within the group. As Christian Fernández Mirón points out in his interview, the person who initiates this type of process has to guide the events. “The goal is to create a trusting environment so that people begin to propose things, to contradict, and to question. That is when a collective or collaborative process can truly begin.”1 12 13 1. These and all the following citations in this essay are from texts and interviews included in this book. hablarenarte Collaboration The individual who instigates or awakens those feelings in the group By constantly gauging his or her own position in the group, an artist may not be the project’s author, but he or she will undoubtedly wield can avoid these possible conflicts, but then they are assuming the role authority. Of the three approaches mentioned above, two differ in their of a mediator or educator. interpretation on this subject. The approach in which a defined author is most implicit, and the one that is most activist, are characterized by a Now, the ambiguity that surrounds an artist in this situation poses two very practical approach understanding of the idea of collaboration: this questions. One involves analyzing the artist’s function as well as his or process is a suitable tool for meeting objectives. As María Ruido states her capacity in relation to the social. The other calls for questioning the in her interview, collaboration is proposed from the artist’s perspective. idea of collaboration as an artistic tool. With regard to the first, many Similarly, although from a very different ideological standpoint, authors insist that the artist possesses an ontological potential that Fernando García-Dory draws on an ethos of useful art to defend the affords him or her a certain capacity to resignify our way of seeing and idea that valid artistic practice consists of insuring that the resultant doing.