Light Filtered Through the Cracks
By Charlotte Stace
MACBA’s new exhibition Counter-Information: Video-Nou / Servei de Vídeo Comunitari looks back at a moment when video became a tool for political intervention, community organising and collective speech. Set during Spain’s Transition, the exhibition follows Video-Nou, a Catalan collective active from the late 1970s, and its later transformation into the Servei de Vídeo Comunitari.
Working against official narratives still shaped by Francoist structures, the group used video as a form of counter-information: filming neighbourhood struggles, countercultural movements, educational projects and urban conflicts. Their camera was not just there to document, but to provoke debate and return images to the communities they came from.
The exhibition dissolves the line between art, document and action. It serves as a sharp reminder that images can be more than representation - they can be tools for reclaiming voice.