If there is one thing the artistic community has, it is its capacity to assimilate the moment, the critical spirit and the willingness to make difficulties visible from a space of freedom, or at least that is what we think. Economic orthodoxy –completely integrated into our thinking and responsible for the disorder we find ourselves in– has led us, in a subtle and deceptive way, to internalize a set of values and ways of seeing the world that prevents us from RE-imagining radical changes.
We are in a time of prefixes. The concepts exist but it is the nuances that actualize their meanings. This RE prefix that has been repeated to exhaustion in recent months is what we explore in this monograph. RE is so present that there is even talk of the “RE generation”. It is no longer even biological. It does not encompass people born in a time frame with common patterns of thought or behavior, but RE-unites a “mental generation”, which shares a supportive, inclusive, resilient, flexible, dynamic and adaptable attitude. Reasonable qualities to be able to navigate in these “liquid times”, as Zygmunt Bauman defined them, full of uncertainty and at the same time possibilities, of empowerment, but also of fragility.
They are also times to think about collectivity. For this reason, we have invited multidisciplinary, transversal and multifaceted profiles in order to RE-act on an amalgam of proposed concepts. The result is a puzzle of formal and mental approaches. Mar Arza works on rewriting; Armen Avanessian and Andreas Töpfer speculate and draw the notion of recursion; Fito Conesa refreshes us with new technologies. Eli Cortiñas poetically explores refeminizing; Gisela Chillida finds reaction in re-reaction; Frau Diamanda/Hector Acuña and Pol Merchan explore, from different positions, the implications of re-gendering. Marcelo Expósito’s regrouping leads us to a sense of community; Laura González and Chiquita Room claim the idea of self-fulfillment from an individual and human point of view; Martí Manen relates past and present to build the future. Marta Marcé re-emerges with mythology; resilience comes through Diana Padrón. Moisés Puente brings us closer to reinventing the city; Tere Recarens redraws, and, finally, Eirik Senje seeks reactivation from longing.
The pandemic has shown that, to address the climate emergency, the growing social dystopias and any emerging crisis, it is necessary to RE-settle the system in its entirety. Put more positively, would it be possible to promote change in this structural fragility in which we are immersed? This RE-set will depend on our ability to listen to what is happening around us and on the symbiosis between all the figures involved. LET’S RESET!
