CCS Montevideo

Cultural Centre of Spain in Montevideo

This year, the Cultural Centre of Spain in Montevideo celebrates its sixteenth anniversary and reaffirms its commitment to the culture of Uruguay, supporting local cultural initiatives and promoting a varied programme of free, open-access activities in all areas of thought and art, including exhibitions, seminars, training workshops, debates, conferences, concerts, film screenings, theatre seasons, artistic residencies and creative laboratories. The cultural centre in Montevideo is sited in the imposing headquarters of the historic Casa Mojana, a former commercial establishment dating back to 1921 and part of the nation’s cultural heritage. Spanish Cooperation saved this building from threatened destruction, with a rehabilitation project that highlighted its age and historical importance, while adapting it for cultural use today. From the beginning, this cultural centre has made avant-garde expression a hallmark of its identity, supporting experimentation, contemporary creation and new artistic languages, foregrounding the work of Spanish and IberoAmerican artists, both in the capital, Montevideo, and in the rest of the country. The Centre has a modern media library that houses a growing collection of books, magazines, films and disks, focusing particularly on Spanish and Latin American bibliographic content, within a space that has been adapted and organised for different age groups. The media library provides an open space for consultation, with the daily press and fitted with internet terminals. It currently has 20,553 items, in different formats and by May 2019 had 2,722 registered members. There have been 156,326 loans of material since the Centre was inaugurated in 2012. In 2018 alone, 15,572 items were lent out, either within the library or for home use. The media library organises its activities in line with the overall philosophy of the Centre, with programmes and projects to support archival and library-science systems. In addition, a bibliographic resource for artistic workshops has been created. The media library plays an essential cultural, educational and social role. Among other aspects, it provides a specialised, professional service for social groups in situations of special vulnerability, for whom the library not only represents a space for cultural integration, but also supplies advice and accompaniment and fosters empowerment. The area for children and adolescents, which participates in all of the Centre’s cultural and artistic concerns, aims to strengthen the relationship between education and culture, and to expand knowledge of art, culture and science, particularly as concerns the environment, among younger children and teenagers, as well as their families and teachers. On request, this area offers guided tours for educational centres; it also organises weekly activities for young people, from pre-school to pre-university, and undertakes longterm projects such as seasons of children’s theatre with Spanish-language playwrights, performance residencies, a chess space and a reading club. This younger population is also the driving force behind the creation of the Centre’s urban organic garden, the first to be implemented within a cultural space in Montevideo, an initiative that offers a participatory platform for research, a versatile teaching resource and a learning space for a sustainable society. The Centre’s programme for the elderly also features a range of cultural activities, with particular attention to groups at risk of exclusion. This programme helps make culture available to all, regardless of age and condition, thus assuring cultural and social rights. The programme includes regular courses in fields such as literature, creative writing, memory and cognitive stimulation, handicrafts and chess; the courses are held all year round, to avoid situations of loneliness and isolation in critical periods such as holidays.

Throughout its existence, the Montevideo Cultural Centre has developed and consolidated its promotion of cultural cooperation, providing visibility and offering space to international networks and festivals – some initiated by the Centre itself – thus ensuring Spanish participation at the highest level, and creating dialogue with actors, agents and/or local figures. Platforms such as the International Festival of Contemporary Dance (FIDCU), the International Festival of Performing Arts (FIDAE), the World Poetry Encounter, Montevideo Comics, Doc Montevideo, International Film Festival and the Black Week, among others, have featured leading international personalities: Miguel del Arco, Isabel Ordaz, Carmen Machi, Aimar Pérez Galí, La Ribot, Pablo Esbert, Fernando Trueba, Ray Loriga, Miguelanxo Prado, Ángela Segovia, Marta Sanz and many more household names. Furthermore, the Centre has lent generous support to artistic creation, promoting competitions and designing programmes aimed at creating, staging and publicising avant-garde creation. In addition, it has fostered the appearance of new scenic languages, forms of production, contemporary aesthetics and artistic processes. In many cases, an appearance promoted by the Montevideo Cultural Centre is the first time that the artist has visited or been exhibited in the Southern Hemisphere, as was the case of the workshop offered by the versatile Eduardo Casanova or the first individual exhibition of work by Filip Custic. The Cultural Centre of Spain is a reference space for the plastic arts, with activities spanning not only the recent periods of art history in Spain, Uruguay and elsewhere in Latin America, but also the present, sometimes angry times. We scrutinise and research forgotten aspects of history, such as conceptualism during the Ibero-American dictatorships; we re-examine the important role played by women in the arts, many of whom had been sidelined or ignored by an essentially male chauvinist historiography; we reinstate essential figures in the evolution of Uruguayan art in the twentieth century; we provide a platform for marginalised artistic groups; and we promote an international Ibero-American dialogue in which the region’s problems are addressed from an artistic standpoint. By filling in these gaps in our history in a far-reaching, professional and multidisciplinary way, the Montevideo Cultural Centre has won recognition as a bastion of artistic and academic research. Although its efforts are mainly dedicated to production, the Centre also hosts itinerant exhibitions, especially those which address issues prioritised by Spanish Cooperation in its Master Plan, such as displays presenting new outlooks on feminism, those denouncing discrimination according to sex, religion or ideas, those promoting integration and those which, via artistic expression, address the application of the Sustainable Development Goals. An ample spectrum of contemporary Spanish art has been shown at the Cultural Centre, with individual exhibitions by figures such as Antoni Muntadas, Alberto García Alix, Ouka Lele, José Manuel Broto, Isidoro Valcárcel Medina, Chema Madoz and Isabel Muñoz. The Centre has also provided an invaluable showcase for many Uruguayan artists, including Teresa Pupo, Magela Ferrero, Juan Lugo, Luis Camnitzer, Yamandú Canosa, Marco Maggi, Manuel Rodríguez and Yudi Yudoyoko. Collective exhibitions, too, have presented the work of top-flight Ibero-American contemporary artists. Complementary activities, in parallel to the exhibitions, are another potent aspect of the Centre’s programming, enriching the experience from different angles by extending the theoretical, cultural and social concepts presented. The Centre’s exhibitions, thus, set out content that generates debate, dialogue and, sometimes, positive confrontations. Another important element within the Centre’s activities is that of museology; thanks to the meticulous preparation of its exhibitions, the Centre is a driving force in new concepts of museum science, incorporating innovation, professionalism, the element of surprise, didactics and the application of environmental protocols in the use of materials and lighting. The Centre’s commitment to the professionalisation of the cultural industries has made it one of Uruguay’s most important settings – and benchmarks – for culture. It has provided outstanding opportunities in the field of performing arts through projects highlighting major new works of Spanish drama, experimental projects like Microescena (Microstage), long-term creative artistic residencies and related publications. For example, the Centre has presented work by Josep Maria Miró, Guillem Clua, Paco Bezerra, Laila Ripoll, José

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1. SAT Exhibition / Arte Trans Week, Montevideo Cultural Centre, 2019

2. Participant in a children’s activity at the Cervantes Festival of Montevideo, 2016

2 Padilla and Lluïsa Cunillé, to name just a few, in the Uruguayan art world. In addition, Uruguayan audiences have enjoyed various Spanish productions, such as Las Noches Bárbaras (Barbarian Nights, originally staged by Círculo de Bellas Artes in Madrid) and Días Nórdicos (Nordic Days, staged by Zona de Obras). These productions illustrate not only the range of content and programming now being offered in Uruguay, but the different approaches and production techniques being employed in award-winning projects from Spain, now given the opportunity to extend their audience via itinerant programmes in Latin America. Furthermore, the Montevideo Cultural Centre has transformed and enriched its content, adapting it to new times in line with governmental developments in Uruguay resulting in beneficial cultural policies, and working side-by-side with new, vigorous institutions in cultural and social affairs. This cooperation and coordination has enabled the Centre to found and manage annual events of great significance, including the National Bookshop Night, a complete novelty just three years ago, together with debates, roundtables and critical discussions of ideas on writers and the publishing industry. One such event is the Uruguayan branch of the FILBA International Literature Festival, attended by world-renowned authors such as Enrique Vila-Matas, Irvine Welsh, Catherine Millet, Pedro Juan Gutiérrez, José Luís Peixoto and Ida Vitale. The institution has also launched new artistic and curatorial spaces by opening up to the public its Rooftop terrace and the Organic Vegetable Garden, which provide settings for a wide range of proposals, organised in accordance with the Centre’s mission statement and prioritising concerns such as the environment, gender equality and the LGBTI+ movement. Another field of action lies outside the physical space of the Cultural Centre, involving actions taken by other Uruguayan cultural and artistic institutions (public or private) within the cultural network of Montevideo. Additionally, the Centre promotes activities outside the capital city, with travelling exhibitions and itinerant theatre or cinema productions, and also collaborates with initiatives taken by different institutions and municipal authorities nationwide, in order to decentralise cultural actions, among many initiatives taken to highlight the Spanish cultural scene in Uruguay.

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3. Second edition of the Días Nórdicos festival on the rooftop terrace of the Montevideo Cultural Centre, 2018

4. Intersticios exhibition in the main show room of the Montevideo Cultural Centre, 2019

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5. Ephemeral Chronicles, performed on the rooftop terrace of the Montevideo Cultural Centre, 2019

6. Noches Bárbaras Festival in the Montevideo Cultural Centre

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Among other aspects of its cooperation with local institutions, the Montevideo Cultural Centre provides the physical space and logistical support for training programmes and knowledge dissemination. In the city, the Centre is now a focal point for the implementation of these types of activities by cultural groups, NGOs, international organisations and local government departments. Extending this spirit of collaboration and opening up to other institutions, the Centre is also working with the Consulate General of Spain and the Labour Department of the Embassy of Spain to modernise and reform the regional centres offered to Spanish emigrant communities and their descendants in Uruguay. By means of workshops, training courses and advisory services in cultural administration, communication, and economic management, the Centre is helping to maintain and upgrade important areas of Spanish cultural infrastructure that are in real danger of disappearing. In order to avoid inconsistency and improvisation, cultural relations between Spain and Uruguay must have a consolidated frame of

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reference. In this regard, the Cultural Centre of Spain in Montevideo led the initiative to have the Uruguayan capital named the fourth Cervantine City, in honour of Miguel de Cervantes. This distinction was awarded unanimously in 2015 at the plenary session of the Ninth International Congress of the Association of Cervantists in São Paulo. This nomination was followed by the creation of the Montevideo Cervantine City Commission, chaired by the Montevideo City Hall, and formed by the Ministries of Education and Culture, of Tourism and of Foreign Affairs, by the University of the Republic, the University of Montevideo and the Catholic University, by the National Academy of Language, the National Library and the Cervantes School, and by the neighbourhood committees of La Blanqueada and Jacinto Vera. In accepting this nomination, the Montevideo authorities pledged to implement an openended programme of cultural and academic activities related to Spanish culture. As part of this commitment, the Cultural Centre created

the Cervantine International Festival, with the participation of the Cervantine Commission, leading figures in Uruguayan institutions, both public and private, and city theatres, galleries and exhibition spaces, to highlight the life and work of Cervantes, his legacy to Spanish culture and his continuing relevance. Historical memory, the avant-garde, culture, inclusion, ecology, revolution, profundity, amusement, education, fairness, feminism, tolerance, solidarity, philosophy, community, research, solidarity, experimentation, dialogue, diversity, science, quality, alternatives, dissemination, management, technology, networks, cooperation, integration, training, governance, knowledge, debate, broadcasting... these concepts are all inherent to the fabric of the Cultural Centre of Spain in Montevideo.

Support and contribution to our urban heritage

William Rey Ashfield

Architect, Ph.D. in Art History and Management of Cultural Heritage. Former President of the National Cultural Heritage Commission.

As we all know, urban heritage is a complex body of components, among which outstanding architecture, cherished spaces and monuments contribute strongly to our sense of identity. However, these elements are just one part of heritage. In addition, there exists an extensive layer of histories and accounts, both written and oral, of music and sounds, of cultural productions and institutions; in short, a body of human experiences and organisation that forms an integral part of the city. Today, the Cultural Centre of Spain is of fundamental importance within our historic city centre and therefore is fundamental to Montevideo as a whole, given the significance and identity of this area. In recent years, the Centre has played a key role in raising awareness of our urban cultural heritage, and has been prominently involved in the renewal of the old city, promoting cultural activities (artistic, humanistic and technical-scientific), including exhibitions, performances, lectures, congresses and seminars of the highest social and academic value. Underlying and inspiring this insistent cultural activity is the dedicated work performed by its directors. In this regard, I would like to make special mention of Ricardo Ramón Jarne, for his support of all those working in cultural affairs, including public institutions, NGOs and individuals. Moreover, his introduction of an activity hub within the Centre’s headquarters greatly facilitated the incorporation of organisations working in defence of our cultural heritage, organisations that not so long ago lacked a space in which to conduct their research and publication work. Finally, let us not forget two essential contributions by the Cultural Centre to the urban heritage of Montevideo. Firstly, the splendid, permanently-established conservation and maintenance plan for its headquarters, an outstanding example of building rehabilitation among Uruguay’s inventory of National Historic Monuments. And secondly, the renown achieved by Montevideo with its designation as Ciudad Cervantina (City of Cervantes), in recognition of its significant bibliographic heritage, and of the city’s profound acquaintance with Don Quixote and other texts by this author. This achievement owed much to the support of the Cultural Centre of Spain and has enabled the Uruguayan capital to form part of the select list of Ibero-American cities, headed by Alcalá de Henares, the birthplace of Miguel de Cervantes. The Montevideo Cultural Centre may seem to have come a very long way since its creation, but its impressive list of achievements has been earned in a relatively short time. Doubtless the future holds much more for this institution in our city, and its impact on the urban heritage and on the population will continue to be as important tomorrow as it is today. In Montevideo and throughout Uruguay, we are grateful for the excellent work done by the Centre, in the past, present and future.

Intelligence and wisdom

José Miguel Onaindia

Cultural manager and lawyer specialised in cultural rights. Director of the Ph.D. programme in Art Law and Cultural Legislation at the University of Buenos Aires. The Cultural Centre of Spain in Montevideo is prominent in the intense artistic activity of the city. The splendid historical building chosen for its headquarters, equipped with all the technological and other resources needed for workers, visitors and cultural displays, is the ideal setting for the events that are regularly programmed there, with intelligence and wisdom. The Centre provides a space in Uruguay for the dissemination of Spanish and Ibero-American culture and for the external projection of Uruguayan creativity; an area for dialogue, exchange and debate among people of different nationalities and cultural backgrounds. The Centre’s policymakers and managers are firmly committed to the public, non-governmental institutions of Uruguay, and joint activities are regularly organised by the Centre and local agencies. Moreover, the Cultural Centre of Spain is a popular venue for festivals, fairs and meetings, thanks to its open relationship with the community and the leading role it plays in Uruguay’s cultural scene.

Memory has a future

Marianella Morena

Actress, playwright, stage director and teacher. In 2003 she was given the Molière Award by the

Embassy of France in Uruguay. It was 2003; the Cultural Centre had just opened its doors in Montevideo. I went to a Marco Maggi installation that consisted of various stacks of white A4 paper, distributed around the exhibition space, at different heights. Music was playing and the public were invited to interact with the “stacked-up whiteness”. I went with my 5-year-old son Lautaro; he began to walk among the stacks, and then to run, and then the unwritten became a bird, became territory, became presentpastfuture; the paper was transformed, became words, became illustration – here and now or yet to come. That moment is engraved in my memory. Today my son is a musician, and he too plays previous creations and creations yet to be, with his notes and his performances. I write my fictions, and every one of us tells our own story. It is memory of the future. The arrival of the Montevideo Cultural Centre on the site of a former hardware emporium lent an air of the possible to a city that enjoyed a strong, independent artistic life, but which had scant institutional presence. The Centre conveys thought and practice, via synthesis and with an expansive view of the arts, incorporating a contemporary outlook and placing great emphasis on regional cultural manifestations. We welcomed it with joy and hope. Times quickly changed, and the National Directorate of Culture was created, as part of the Ministry of Education and Culture, continuing several of its former lines of action. A new way of thinking, feeling and creating culture, with care and sensitivity, appeared, in which a professional attitude was taken to the simultaneous application of resources, within different fields and disciplines. In these few lines, it is impossible to detail the projects undertaken, the artistic directors and their teams, and the original initiatives that create a sense of belonging, nourishing our conceptual, reflective landscape. But, when I set out to write, the prevailing image in my mind is that of my son “passing through the whiteness”, so that it can act upon us, and on others. From the heart, thank you.

CHILE Cultural Centre of Spain in Santiago

Address

Avenida Providencia 927 Providencia, Santiago

Opened

1993

Web

http://www.ccesantiago.cl