21 Nov THERE IS NO MANUAL: POLITICAL IMAGINATION AND THE MAKING OF CONTEMPORARY ART 🗓 🗺
Theoretical and practical workshop led by Sandra Sánchez and Pablo Rasgado
This three-day theoretical and practical workshop will explore the role of imagination as a political tool, specifically an artistic imagination that abandons isolation to engage with untamed knowledge, local practices, materials, and specific narratives. Examples will be provided, and exercises will be conducted to identify a problem or area of reality that can be challenged through imaginative action. The aim is not to propose something new, but to fracture the existing order in order to re-enchant it and restore its meaning.
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THERE IS NO MANUAL: POLITICAL IMAGINATION AND THE MAKING OF CONTEMPORARY ART
Theoretical and practical workshop led by Sandra Sánchez and Pablo Rasgado
- WED.26 + THU.27.NOV.2025 + WED.03.DEC.2025
- 4PM–7PM
- Students in their final semesters, recent graduates, and emerging artists
- Previous registration >here<
- Free admission
- Arte Abierto Pedregal | ARTZ + Obrera centrO
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PUBLIC PROGRAM
WED.26.NOV.2025
Led by >> Pablo Rasgado
Location >> Arte Abierto Pedregal
The first part will consist of a review of the participants’ work, followed by an exercise in “wild references”: an open exchange of images, texts, and case studies between instructors and participants to broaden the frameworks from which each artist is working. During the second part, and based on the references gathered, we will review key examples that have marked past decades to analyze how the art system is being reconfigured in the present, focusing on the question: what defines artistic practice today?
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THU.27.NOV.2025
Led by >> Sandra Sánchez
Location >> Arte Abierto Pedregal
During the first part of the session, we will do body exercises to deconstruct the central gaze and open it to listening and the haptic. During the second part, we will explore how the artist’s body can open up a political space using examples from works by Ana Mendieta, Vito Acconci, Verónica Gerber, Regina José Galindo, and Tania Bruguera, as well as texts by Marlene Dumas and Brian Massumi.
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WED.03.DIC.2025
Led by >> Sandra Sánchez y Pablo Rasgado
Location >> Obrera centrO
Reversing the teaching roles, in this session, workshop participants will bring an imaginative action exercise with their respective natural references to share with the group. We will use floating attention and free association as means of listening and collective feedback. We will discuss their strategies and create a collective manual to open a space based on imaginative actions.
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Sandra Sánchez is an artist, curator, writer, and editor. Her work is based on the practical possibilities of art, collaboration, and listening to critically disrupt the sensitive logics of neoliberalism. She is part of El Cuarto de los Ojos Sucios (a performance space dedicated to the mediation, exhibition, and reflection on contemporary painting), and research groups such as Máquina Simple and Ambient para Leer. She is the editor of the digital magazine Onda MX and a lecturer at Universidad del Claustro de Sor Juana.
IG @phiopsia
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Pablo Rasgado is an artist whose work explores the material and symbolic dimensions of the image through architectural fragments, public space, and preservation processes that reveal tensions between memory, history, and the present. His recent exhibitions include Timebased at MOLAA, Double Vision/Double Museum at MOCA Tucson, and the 11th Mercosul Biennial. He is currently a member of the National System of Art Creators.
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