"An alphabet in the dark"
Centre d' Art Maristany, Barcelona 2022

curated by Jordi Vernis

Joana Capella, Aitana Cordero and Jaume Ferrete Vázquez, Noela Covelo Velasco and Clàudia del Barrio, Laura Llaneli, Alba Mayol, Panos Tsagaris and Gabriel Ventura.

An Alphabet in the Dark shows various strategies for a politicization of secrecy. The aim is to explore the potential of concealment (hermeticism, secret societies, but also confidence and rumour) as a kind of mediation, as a collaborative practice.

The projects of Joana Capella, Noela Covelo Velasco and Clàudia del Barrio, Aitana Cordero and Jaume Ferrete Vázquez, Laura Llaneli, Alba Mayol, Panos Tsagaris and
Gabriel Ventura prioritize formats such as performance, sound installations or graphic experimentation to approach certain main themes: the links between esotericism and
activism, to review iconoclasm, now directed against the word and not against the image; or vindicating whispering as a form of communication.

Another theme acts here as a vanishing point. Visuality has reduced the performative potential of the alphabet, pointing this system of signs to a written device that can serve as a tool of exclusion. To deal with this, the exhibition wants to recover the old dispute between oral and written language ("the spirit saves, the letter kills"), supporting
works and activities that redefine their roles. Orality no longer transfers knowledge only between close people and initiated ones, and writing is not limited to the appearance of characters that divides us between illiterate and literate.