An exhibition not about what the city is, but about what it can be
August 31, 2020–January 30, 2021
The exhibition
The exhibition Twelve Cautionary Urban Tales reopens in Matadero Madrid after being on lockdown for a few months due to the Covid-19, and while most of us, maybe for the first and perhaps the only time in our lives, are living a global pandemic experience, coinciding with a wave of collective global outrage towards the structural racism highlighted by yet another case of police brutality towards the black community in the United States of America. These two phenomena have transformed the spatial experience of our cities in a very short space of time and exposed the urgent need to question the political agency embedded in the way we inhabit them.
It seems like a perfect moment to visit the exhibition, which is basically conceived as a storybook, formed by narratives and stories that have the intention of problematising and questioning the conventional definition of “city,” revealing new and different ways of inhabiting the world with them.
The exhibition revolves around a single question: what is an ideal city like? Is it planetary, postcolonial, queer, self-sufficient, or intelligent; central or peripheral; is it a city of affects and care? Is it all of the above? In this sense, Twelve Cautionary Urban Tales intends to generate a dialogue between the exhibitor and the visitor, and make these narratives a useful tool to imagine inclusive futures together, something much needed today when liberties are repressed, interpersonal and interspecies relationships questioned, and the idea of “surviving” supersedes that of “living”.
Participant artists and architects
Aristide Antonas, Katayoun Arian, Assemble, Bartlebooth, Studio Céline Baumann, Clara Nubiola, Chloé Rutzerveld, Design Earth, Merve Bedir, Chong Suen, Monique Wong and Sampson Wong, MAIO Architects, Traumnovelle, The Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) with Francesco Garutti.
The catalogue
Part collection of tales, part description of the exhibition. The catalogue accompanying Twelve Cautionary Urban Tales poses a leisurely reading of the exhibition. It includes unpublished material from the studios and artists generated from the design process and production of their works. Complemented by a visual essay allowing the readers to get to know the unique display in Matadero Madrid and its details, while a hidden fable takes shape and pop up within its pages.
It also includes reflective, lyrical and critical texts bringing down to urban reality the contemporary questions posed by the exhibition, showing how the cautionary tales were carefully chosen to read and enjoy the political agency and negotiations of different agents and relations shaping our city.
Design, critical reflection and fantasy get together to tell us what our city can be!
UTOPIA Typeface
The typeface UTOPIA REGULAR has been specially designed by N-E for the exhibition Twelve Cautionary Urban Tales, and it’s been used for the texts and labels in the exhibition, as well as in the catalogue, as a distinctive design gesture that connects all the elements. For its design, special characters have been incorporated, and they are inspired by the calligraphy used in old saints prints or books like “Chronicle of the World 1493”, and Thomas More’s Utopian alphabet.
Exhibition curator: Ethel Baraona Pohl
Curatorial advisor: César Reyes Najera
Exhibition design: Taller de Casquería
Catalogue published by: Matadero Madrid
Contributions: Ethel Baraona Pohl, Rosa Ferré, Maryam Monalisa Gharavi, Álvaro Talarewitz
Editorial advice: César Reyes Najera, Ana Ara
Graphic design, exhibition and catalogue: N-E
Launch: Autumn 2020
