María Bella
en   es   gl

I present myself as someone with a profound dedication to being in the world with others thinking and doing critically and using art, culture and the curatorial for these means. I moved from the global city into the local rural with my family in 2015. Leaving Madrid towards Finisterrae, to Corcubión, a small villa that forms part of La Costa da Morte in Gallicia. The very North-West of Spain.

The context in which I now live -far from and forgotten by “the centers of control” and therefor with skinny infrastructures and very raw cultural policies- challenges me to rethink art and culture’s function and to envision new approaches. The absence of instituted practices open my critical, imaginative and organizative capacity to unexpected problematics which I use for experimenting alternatives to the binary positions of the “inside” or the “outside” of the system, the institution or power, eager to explore transitions to the “near by”.

Art and the artistic endeavor have always stand in my horizon and I don’t imagine tools as valuable as them. Along my curatorial practice I have questioned the white cube, the exhibition as a dispositif, the institution as a given and authorship as a condition of departure. Hence, I have explored the virtues of the site-specific, notions behind community, participative and collective practices as well as process based approaches and the authorless.

Academic qualifications and profesional information

Degree in Fine Arts, Universidad Complutense, Madrid (1997). Master in Arts Administration and Creative Curating, Goldsmiths University, London (2000). PHD in Curatorial Knowledge, Goldsmiths University, London (2017).

I conceptualized and initiated Intermediae in Matadero Madrid between 2005 and 2007. I was responsible for its program and coordination from 2007 until 2012. Before, I dedicated myself to curatorial projects such as Itinerarios del Sonido (web in flash/Documentary/Publication) and Mientrastanto both commissioned by Madrid city council and conceived for inquiring as well as engaging modes for looking at and exploring the city. I also coordinated several cultural projects, most of them working with historical archives, for Residencia de Estudiantes, Photo-España and Canopia in Madrid

In 2013 I decided to approach the field of the curatorial from a theoretical stand and begun a learning process of research, critical thinking and writing which I developed in the context of the Phd program Curatorial Knowledge in the Visual Cultures department at Goldsmiths University – London. From this period there is a thesis entitled Returning life to life. The factory of Cine sin Autor.

Contributions to symposiums and residencies

>>Giant Step: Critical Regionalism – Eindhoven as a Common Ground.
Museo Van Abben, in 2012. “Exploring the Politics of Collectivity” (presentation).
>>Critical Practicies and Experimentation in the Visual Cultures Department, University of Copenhagen, in 2014. “To Embody the Other” (presentation)
>>Research Residency at Centro de Estudios, Museo Centro de Arte Reina Sofía being part of the collective Cine sin Autor, in 2014.
>>On the Division of Labour, Work, Knowledge, the Sensible, Spaces
and Times in the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts, in 2016. “Experimental Divides and New Industrialisms” (presentation).
>>Filosofía para veraneantes II, organized by Universidad Cromática in Corcubión (A Coruña), in 2017. “Todavía hay arte después de la muerte del Arte? La desmaterialización del arte en la era tecnológica” (presentation).
>>Primer Congreso Internacional Prekariart. Universidad del Pais Vasco, in 2018. “Pensar la precariedad desde el arte”.

Some articles and texts

  • Nuevos imaginarios artísticos, 2018. Revista Sin Objeto. Arte, investigación, políticas Nº1. Departameto de Arte, Facultad de Bellas Artes de Cuenca.
  • Ser Crebeira, 2017. Revista Accesos Nº1. Prácticas Artísticas y formas de conocimiento contemporáneas. Universidad Complutense
    de Madrid.
  • Ese xesto tan íntimo, 2016. Que pasa na costa. Digital Newspaper from A Costa da Morte (Galicia). Text available in Spanish at pdf
  • AMARE, 2016. Que pasa na costa. Digital Newspaper from A Costa da Morte (Galicia). Text available in Spanish at pdf
  • Un trabajo feliz, 2015. Text that accompanies the documentary piece about Woodworks Buschmann Bella. A project concerning crafts knowledge production.

    At present an recently I am engaged with

tec&tea, a project commited to critical learning in technology
〉I regularly write for the Digital Newspaper Qué pasa na costa
〈I collaborate in convening Filosofía para veraneantes, an anual event that opens philosophy to the general public. It takes place in Corcubión, Galicia.
〉I organized with Leö Kch A Costa da Vida, a workshop dedicated to thinking, writing, speaking and rapping.

I can be reached at

mariabellabuschmann@gmail.com