Alteritat Radical — Book | Arnau Sala Saez

Alteritat Radical — Book

from Arnau Sala Saez

Book/Magazine

Arnau Sala Saez
Alteritat Radical Book
Dimensions: 14cmx23cm
Pages: 100
Languages: Catalan / Spanish
Publisher: La Panera — lapanera.cat
Graphic Design: 131 — www.131.gd
Texts by Roser Sanjuán, Laura Benítez, Violeta Mayoral and Arnau Sala Saez

«Alteritat Radical» (Radical Otherness) was an investigation and experimental project in cultural mediation which had the goal of building a toolbox that broadly addresses the politics of alterity and the ableist conceptions of identity. Through this project I became involved with various artistic and educational agents in a specific and experimental work process.

Based on my work and practices, which reflect on radical spectres of otherness, I did a residency at the INS Manuel de Montsuar High School in Lleida. The residency was devised as a laboratory for the emergence of various subjectivities where to develop and test multiple strategies (through artistic mediation) to promote an agency of change and transformation of the work of the artist, as well as the affectations derived from the educational community of this specific context.

I understand the process as the realisation of a compendium of initiatives and lessons learned around this program, so that they can become new resources to address otherness in the classroom, beyond my presence.

With «Alteritat Radical» we have investigated the lapse of attention and neurodiversity through my artistic practices. Through the project, we have experimented with deconstructing the mechanisms that define various conditions, such as ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) as dysfunctional in a production-focused capitalist framework.

In the course of the different sessions, examples of different languages of contemporary creation have been introduced —whether visual arts, sound or contemporary music—, and have been combined with references from areas such as religion, mythology , science or philosophy, seeking to explore the phenomenon of attention through different points of view, to reflect on what our cognitive limitations are within the social context, especially taking into account that this requires regulations that allow us to fit into some professional and academic expectations ruled by the capitalist idea of productivity.