Primal Distance

Primal Distance is an online platform, a public programme and a publication produced in partnership with City of Barcelona, Sant Andreu Contemporani, and Institut Ramon Llull.

Primal Distance

Online

Artists:

Camila Cañeque

Felipe García Salazar

Biel Llinàs

Joan Pallé

Curator: Carolina Lio

Assistant curators: Arianna Guidi, Giulia Menegale

"I imagine it in the future, in a context where we won’t be able to leave home any more. People will have a puddle imitating the natural urban and suburban landscape of the past and will water it once a week"

- Camila Cañeque.

A puddle in the middle of the room is an image of paralysis and isolation. Inactivity and seclusion, forced or voluntary, keeps us suspended in between questions. Is this solitude too much or not even enough? How much space do we have to live in? How much distance between us?

The four artists in the show were working with these practices since before the start of Covid-19, their work has taken on an unexpected relevance. Asocial attitude has never been so popular, now that it is transformed into social responsibility.

Drawing from the philosophy of Byung-Chul Han and Martin Buber, the diaries and cinema of Derek Jarman, and sci-fi literature, the project defines personal and community relationships starting from a perspective of distance rather than proximity. With artists coming from or working in rural areas of the autonomous community of Catalonia and the Balearics islands, the concept of distance is also articulated in a geographical and political sense, emphasising the ambiguous space of separation that defines and maintains identities.

Visit the show here