arts & culture

This autumn the cultural hub at the end of Las Ramblas, located in a Renaissance building that popped-up first as a convent of Barefoot Augustinians in 1626, restared its activity with a new image. Opening new spaces and placing new questions, the center will be offering more room for participation and reflection to artists and the public.

The pilot theme of the opening season is self-exposure as the catalan title Exposar · No exposar-se · Exposar-se · No exposar suggests – a phenomenon which in the past years became an intregral part of our lives. Hence, the artifacts currently exposed in the halls have been curated with this connecting topic in mind: the photo exhibition Chain Reaction by Dina Kelberman & Jonathan Brown propagates for visual ecology amidst “the excess and madness of iconic accumulation brought about by the internet”, while the Staring at the Bin instrallation by composer Meriel Price who provides an interaction with the public spaces by basing her work on videos recorded around the city of Barcelona throughout 2021. 

The most interesting work on display is the epic participative poem Desnonissea written by Núria Martínez-Vernis i Oriol Sauleda based on real stories of local housing eviction. The artistic concept of the catalan performing arts director Roger Bernat and the Brasilian theatre duo Erro Grupo (Luana Raiter & Pedro Bennaton) invites the public not just to participate but to perform and deliver the piece itself according to personal tastes within a Greek tragedy-like set. This means that each of us could go to Arts Santa Monica with a group o friends (at least eight), discover what it is and play around – just call at +34 935 671 110 in advance in order to reserve a time slot.