institutional plasticity. a clinical, aesthetical and political research
beatriz regueira pons
What it is about, in so-called mental illness whatever its origin, is the subject's position in the face of desire.
Joana Masó in Tosquelles. Curar les institucions.
An art institution, like a health or educational institution, has the mission to transform life, to perform it. The cyclical ecological and political crises that we inhabit, polarize the conservative-progressive forces, in coherence with the "material, aesthetic and political plastic" that implies the concretion of every form: the rich range of grays that endows the oscillation between preservation and extinction; powers present in the fate from the smallest microorganism to the largest of systems.
The "sympoiesis" of which Haraway speaks is that which understands the system as a cooperation of all its parts. When it enters into crisis it is from a blockage, from a lack of listening, of fluidity with the "potentia vital"; often in the human, fruit of the labor, productive and bureaucratic inertias of the systematization (in the sense of automatic repetition) of existence typical of post-Fordist societies, of capitalist individualism and of the biopolitical logic of self-exploitation.
The premise of the "fallow", which La Escocesa proposes as a methodological phase of institutional reformulation, could be one of the possible places of semiotic-material listening; the moment of "plastic power" in which the energy and matter in "rest", or pause of human doing, is molded until it can again become form, in a concrete individuation that, once again, will change.
Within the wide range of anti-authoritarian movements for the humanization of institutions (European anti-psychiatric and, in Latin America, anti-manicomic), there have been several practices that have taught us the possibility of an "institutional psychotherapy" as the Freudian psychiatrist and Catalan Marxist, Tosquelles, would call it. Almost synchronically, on the other side of the world, in Rio de Janeiro, Nise da Silveira, a Jungian communist psychiatrist, also proposes an open and performative institution through STOR (Sessâo de Terapia Ocupacional Restaurativa), a space where the "users" co-create expressive and transformative dynamics, within a more conservative psychiatric institution. In this "medium", which is the institution, there is also a privileged place for the body, giving space to practices that articulate "desire" (in Freudian/Lacanian psychoanalysis treated primarily from language, even if it is from its "musicality", Tosquelles would say), from listening to the psycho-physical apparatus, anchoring consciousness in the present of the semiotic-material event. When "the mind touches the body" is when the contact with the world emerges, beyond an "I", based mainly on the mental narrative. Where the discursive mind is silent, the world is incarnated.
Institutional Plasticity. A clinical, aesthetic and political research, seeks to open an exchange through dialectical encounters, somatechnics and experimental assemblies, starting from the "institutional psychotherapy" of F. Tosquelles at the Saint-Alban hospital, the "schizoanalysis / ecosophy" of F. Guattari and the practices carried out in the clinic of La Borde, the phenomenological psychology of R. Laing, the proposals of corporal and meditative listening bordering between the art-clinic of Buddhist monks and Lygia Clark; and the proposals of Jungian analytical psychology together with the presence of the animal co-therapists of Nise da Silveira, in the former Pedro II Psychiatric Center, now the Nise da Silveira Municipal Institute.
The central question that makes "sense-sense" to ask is, then:
What practices would be necessary today, from psycho-physical diversity, feminisms, decoloniality, embodied knowledge, and ecological emergence, for an "institutional psychotherapy"; that takes care of both personal and collective space, within an artistic, educational, health institution; public and/or hybrid (associations, concerted, cooperatives)?
The research project will articulate several public meetings with people close to these referents, coming from the world of critical psychiatry, art and social activism, and will present a publication reflecting the research process, including a series of "manuals or guides", for the reproducibility of methodologies that allow us to improve our subjectivities and institutions, whether in the artistic, health, educational or social field.
related activities
ACTIVITY 1
Fantastic, symbolic and embodied. From "institutional psychotherapy" to an embodied institutional plastic.
Wednesday, 28th of October, 2022
From 17h to 19h
Public activity in Spanish
Free admission until full capacity
- Conversation with Beatriz Regueira about her project "Institutional plasticity" and her thesis "Art, body and presence".
- Conversation with Mireia Sallarès about her film "Potential history of Francesc Tosquelles, Catalunya and the fear" (2021).
ACTIVITY 2
Transformation through affections: the psychiatric reform of Nise da Silveira and the self-management of the community “garaldea ecofeminista”.
Thursday, 17th of November, 2022
Online meeting in Spanish and Brazilian
From 17h to 20h
Public activity
- "From the asylum to the museum: Nise da Silveira and the aesthetics of freedom" (Talk in Portuguese-Brazilian with simultaneous translation to Spanish)
Talk by Eurípedes Gomes da Cruz Junior, musician and PhD in Museology and Heritage. Author of the thesis "From the asylum to the museum: science and art in the collections of madness". He worked with Nise da Silveira for over 30 years and is currently a curator at the National Museum of Fine Arts (Brazil).
- "Feminist experiences in collective care spaces".
Conversation between Ana Luiza Braga and Paula Lamana. Ana Luiza Braga is a researcher and translator. She works with agroecology, education and community organizing with social movements in Brazil. Paula Lamana has worked as a nurse in social and health institutions and lived in the community. She studies medical anthropology and works in feminist community projects for and with women.
ACTIVITY 3
The "experiential performance" as a medium to embody knowledge.
Saturday, 21th of January, 2023
From 19:30h to 20:30h
Public activity in Spanish
Free entrance until full capacity
Inscription form
- "Situated meditation on caring about the institution".
The group "Theoria. Coneixement encarnat", formed by Beatriz Regueira (researcher and artist), María González (somatic psychologist) and Dasha Lavrennikov (choreographer and researcher) propose a guided meditation used as a methodology to "cure" the institution. This methodology follows the knowledge of Tosquelles, Guattari, Lygia Clark and Nise dona Silveira, and will be created from the suggestions of "improvement" of the community of L'Escocesa and the attending public.
ACTIVITY 4
Enmascarades. Presentation of the publication "Plástica Institucional" and PsychoMask carnival.
May 5th, 2023
From 18:00 to 21:30h
- Presentation of the publication "Institutional Plastics. A clinical, aesthetic and political research", by Beatriz Regueira Pons
18:00 - 19:00h
Research project that reflects and proposes methodologies of institutional management, from the movements of humanization of psychiatric practices and contemplative performativity.
Free admission until full capacity is reached.
- PsychoMask - Mask workshop led by Estel Boada
19:00 - 21:30h
In this workshop we will do a work of alteregos and connection with our unconscious to develop the mask that we want to bring out to free ourselves and dance with the other self. The materials will be provided, although we welcome any object or material that you wish to bring to make your PychoMask :)
Estel Boada is a multifaceted artist and uses design, humor, drawing, performance, public space, collectivity and voice to show in an ironic and burlesque way what happens and affects her.
Registration is required before April 28th at 23:59h through this form.
Do you want to come to any of the activities? We will publish more information as the dates come closer. If you want to stay updated, check our events page.
about the artist
Beatriz Regueira Pons (Palma de Mallorca, 1986) lives in Barcelona and works in different locations. Researcher, artist, teacher and somatic worker. She holds a PhD in Fine Arts from the University of Barcelona. Her research delves into the body-consciousness-technology-political relations from feminist, neo-materialist and contemplative studies, exploring through different somatic practices and video-essay the symptomatology of bodies in discomfort.
She works with "Theoria. Conocimiento encarnado", a collective project that explores the affective and common dimension of knowledge and experience through meditation. She is part of Nenazas, a collective that generates feminist fanzines and performances. Her doctoral thesis "Art, body and presence. Cognitive sciences and phenomenological practices of subjectivity" is a theoretical-practical research focused on somatic, artistic and clinical techniques that activate subjectivity in its sensitive, relational and emergent apprehension, from where to deploy co-implication policies focused on the affections of bodies where the subject or self, core of our capitalist societies, is decentered. She has teached at the Faculty of Fine Arts (UB). She has been a reviewer for the journals Artnodes (UOC) and BRAC (UB). The works developed, have been shared in the form of talks, performances and video-essays in spaces such as Sant Andreu Contemporani, MACBA, La Capella, La Virreina, Utrecht University, PUC-Rio, Ca'n Felipa, Hangar, MUU Gallery, Sala d'Art Jove or LadyFestBCN, among others.
More info: http://www.ub.edu/imarte/es/equipo/#Beatriz_Regueira