Son[i]a #377

In this podcast, we talk to sociologist Fernando Domínguez Rubio about the ecologies of care that fuel the fiction of artistic stability —a network of infrastructures, climate technologies, conservation laboratories and underground storage facilities, as well as the largely invisible workers whose labour is usually left out of the traditional narrative of art, even though it is pivotal. We talk about the constant struggle against entropy, reflecting on the physical and human resources devoted to it, but also on the ethical, political, and economic implications of trying to slow down the passage of time. Because the way Domínguez Rubio sees it, the museum is much more than a space for contemplation and a collective archive: it is a political and cultural technology aimed at freezing time, ordering the world, and determining what is worthy of conservation. We talk to Fernando Domínguez Rubio about regimes of objecthood, about storage facilities, memory, and greenhouses, about uniqueness, and about other ways of holding onto things.

In this podcast we talk to curator and researcher José Luis Espejo about the unusual progression of his academic immersion, but above all we focus on the key role played by the blubber of toothed cetaceans at different points in recent human history. A descent into the hidden layers of early modernity that connects biology, chemistry, economics, military engineering, and lighting technology. We talk about sperm whales and dolphins, about boats, lamps, and trade treaties, and about the echoes of this history, which resonate in the midst of the current climate crisis. But mostly we talk about blubber, about our relationship with ecosystems, and about the unsustainable exploitation of marine, fossil, and human resources.

In this podcast, researcher, writer and curator Tania Safura Adam takes us inside her research processes and strategies to revive the individual and collective memories of blackness in Spain: an urgent and tenacious writing operation based on fragments that are often scattered and disjointed. The public dissemination of these silenced and ignored narratives has the power to make us feel uncomfortable, and in this discomfort lies the potential for transformation. We also talk about gaps in the archive, about potential archives, and about what it means to take responsibility for this. And on a more personal note, about what motherhood and child rearing in the diaspora means for her and for many other women.

In this podcast, Marxist historian, editor, and journalist Vijay Prashad emphasises the power of storytelling, expressing emotion as he critiques imperialism and raises awareness about war. While disagreeing with hyper-imperialism, he recognises the uncertain material conditions that underpin conservative ideologies. Reflecting on Palestinian oppression, he thoughtfully revisits the intertwined histories of European colonialism and antisemitism, with a particular focus on the German context. Though fatigued by dishonest discourse, he finds hope in the dissent of younger generations and the socially constructed courage they embody. And despite attempts at silencing, he embraces the defiant spirit of protest, rallying behind the cry: ¡No pasarán!

Whether in her teaching or her participation in the popular resistance for universal access to water, Andrea Ballestero’s approach is a feedback exercise that completely blurs the division between theory and practice. Her work advocates a collaborative, feminist modus operandi on ethnography, as well as the affordances of the environment: be that an ecosystem, a regulatory agency, or 'the technolegal devices at the centre of these political mobilisations'. We talk to Andrea Ballestero about aquifers and amorphous futures, about imagination as an essential part of the academic research process, and about the potential of bureaucratic practices as cogs in a possible machinery of change—which does not necessarily have to involve large-scale global transformations.

Interview with Allan Sekula about the relationship between art and photography, about artistic activism, the role of the artist in the public sphere and "Waiting for Tear Gas".

Jodi Dean talks about communism as a still-latent project, about the Party as a scalable global form, about dystopian municipalism, anamorphic ecologies, and liberal democracies, about Not An Alternative and Liberate Tate as examples of sustainable activism practices at museums, about desires, enthusiasm, and trust and about the emotions captured inside social media.