The construction process of EINA Bosc started at the beginning of 2021 and was accompanied by a programme of artistic, speculative and performative interventions, explorations and workshops in situ. Starting from a pandemic estrangement, from the need to redefine spatial and relational contracts, the Ambushes collaborated with artists, designers and architects linked to the creative community of Barcelona who launched a radically contextual and conceptually open reflection, aimed at revealing the potential of the place as well as its archaeology, and influencing the approach of EINA’s dynamics and resources at large.
Accompanying the construction is a way to understand it and transform it in real time, in a way that each proposal is both a reaction to the transformation of the site and another aspect of the working process, and the work. On the other hand, such actions were aimed at the observation of the architectural process, and generated actions to document, probe and measure it, underlining the performative value of both the construction and the ways of observing and dialoguing with it. The features of the building, its limits, the new elements, as well as the remaining and residual ones, appeared as collaborating agents following a diversity of scripts. In a location marked by a neocolonial and patriarchal inheritance, as a centre for the retention of immigrant minors and the national-Catholic re-education of young women, the aim of this programme is to bring out not only the potential of the new building and its workshops, but also its different layers of material and immaterial memory. Speculation and projection of art-design aim, in this sense, at also acting as a path towards re-knowledge and anamnesis.
The vocation of this programme of Ambushes, conducted by the programming platform and think tank eina idea in dialogue with the artist Jordi Colomer, is that of exploring and generating concepts, objects and strategies applicable both in real time and in the ulterior phases of the deliberately unfinished construction of EINA Bosc. The collaborative element is key in the developments of both individual proposals and collective thinking, and each project is realised in collaboration with students from both EINA and other educational communities in Barcelona, through classes and academic programs as well as through open calls. To date, the programme of Ambushes has included the following interventions:
Ambush #1 Sergi Aguilar, May 2021
Ambush #2 Marc Vives, September 2021
Ambush #3 Julia Spinola, November 2021
Ambush #4 Society 0, April 2022
Ambush #5 Pep Vidal, May 2022
Ambush #6 MAIO Architects, February 2023
Ambush #7: Rosa Tharrats, September 2023
Ambush #8: Francesc Ruiz, September 2023
Ambush #9: Jorge Satorre, November 2023
Ambush #10: Pauline Soldevila, February 2024
In Autumn 2023, a session of recapitulation, exchange and debate took place with a group of invited artists, which will culminate in the presentation of a publication to be released during Spring 2024. The book will feature materials which document exhaustively the first cycle of Ambushes, carried out between 2021 and 2023. At the same time, the celebration of this event will continue with the second phase of invitations and workshops within a constant program of Ambushes, counting with the participation of other artists and invited agents.