Fantastic Interior

Since 2021, Room A at La Casa Encendida has been used as a space where, over a 12-month period, a curator or collective can stage an exhibition cycle divided into several chapters, scenes or episodes on one or more themes, always in dialogue with the present. Based on this premise, last year the collective This Is Jackalope presented its cycle An Involuntary Trace, and the same idea has inspired Rafael Barber Cortell to kick off 2022 with a curatorial narrative titled Fantastic Interior. Divided into four scenes that will unfold over the next 12 months, Fantastic Interior explores questions such as intimacy, the creative potential of solitude, the role of bodies in building communities, and the importance of self-care through the work of four artists: Ad Minoliti, Marina González Guerreiro, Eva Koťátková and Korakrit Arunanondchai.

In this cycle, each of them invites us to think about how we have constructed our own perception of the “inner world”, a sphere we tend to associate—perhaps because modernity has taught us to—with vulnerability, intimacy, emotions and also peace. The cycle appeals to those emotions, aspiring to share spaces of fragility that increasingly need our care and attention, perhaps in order to comprehend their restorative power and their ability to forge a sense of community.

In the four scenes, as well as various performative activations and an epilogue in the form of a publication that will assemble the different voices involved in the process, this curatorial journey aims to create a polyphonic chorus which, like a leisurely, intimate conversation, aspires to weave a web of empathy of which visitors can also feel a part.

Now that we have returned to the fast lane, to physical encounters and a way of life that simply carries us along, perhaps it is time to take a closer look at a present full of individuals who are more connected yet more alone than ever before—time to observe how the walls encircling our intimacy were built, to take stock of how those walls have changed and what privacy means in the age of hyper-connectivity. This curatorial project invites us to think long and hard about what happened and what is happening within, trying to understand how the grammar of intimacy has evolved after years of accelerated writing, with artists, with performance, with time, feeling safe, comfortable and at home with ourselves.

Curated by Rafa Barber Cortell

*Title taken from the short story collection Fantástico interior by Pilar Pedraza