PERIFERAL is an intensive post-urban studies program, organized by the platform einaidea and oriented toward the experimental observation of the city's periphery. Through a transdisciplinary approach and bringing together practices from art, architecture, and ecology, PERI\FERAL aims to explore unregulated or vacant, heterogeneous, mutant, or feral areas which reveal some keys to understanding the transformations of contemporary life. The program will offer intensive workshops, lectures, and field explorations, using the outskirts of Barcelona in its multiple manifestations as a case study. The program will also support each student's unique research, providing new perspectives and methodologies for the development of both theoretical and practical projects.
Taking place between March and June 2027, PERIFERAL unfolds over ten weeks and will alternate in-person activities and online presentations, concluding with a symposium and a public exhibition of the participants' final projects. At the end of the course, each participant will receive a Certificate of intensive program from Centre Universitari de Disseny i Art de Barcelona and einaidea. PERIFERAL is aimed at all those who want to deepen their knowledge of the margins of the city, both from a creative and ecosystemic point of view. Through strategies that connect art, architecture and speculative thinking, PERIFERAL combines the disruptive methodologies of einaidea with the know-how and diversity of Eina's research community.
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As vectors of contemporary urbanity, the outskirts are environments crossed by mobility and the non-normative. They can be defined as informal ecosystems where pollution and self-construction overlap with the infrastructural landscape, precarious housing conditions and the tatters of pre-urban nature. PERIFERAL focuses on such scenarios of contemporary life, which we might call post-urban. Specifically, the programme aims to explore the artistic and conceptual potential of liminal zones, taking the outskirts of Barcelona as a case study and testing ground.
On the periphery, the abandonment and vulnerability of some enclaves contrast with the aspirational redesign of habitats a short distance away. The city grows tentacularly, in a non-linear way: with the centre ever farther away, the suburban means less the limit than the subconscious dimension of the metropolis. Vacant lots, industrial sheds, warehouses, small nature reserves, residential outbreaks, unknown monuments, ring roads, rewilded landfills, resource centres, working-class neighbourhoods... Invariant elements of an accidental, fragmentary urbanism that urban planning thought has always treated as residual. A portrait of the European city through its rearguards.
The diversity and ambiguity of peripheral spaces makes them peri-feral (in English, the term combines “peripheral” with “feral”, suggesting spaces that have gone wild). Thus, the peri-feral confers a wild or untamed dimension on the little-surveilled spaces of the outskirts. Their ambiguity, between the unbuilt and the entropic, will give rise to a series of study exercises that will cut across disciplines such as architecture and speculative urbanism, collective and site-specific artistic practices, ecology and sound experimentation. To this end, the programme counts on researchers, professionals and collectives with international careers and deep roots in local knowledge. Thus, practical workshops, masterclasses, sound workshops and observation drifts through the periphery of Barcelona will be developed.
From Eina Bosc —Eina's headquarters adjacent to the Collserola Natural Park—, PERIFERAL will propose dynamics of research and interaction with the city's bordering landscape and its strata, in order to open up and redefine the present and future practice of each participant. Thus, the program wants to place a clear emphasis on experimentation and practice, punctuated by moments of theoretical synthesis. Four conceptual orientations will define the research within PERIFERAL:
_Substructure: we will pay attention to the primary functions of the periphery as a support and machinery for urban centers and residential areas; the suburban as a backdrop for the tertiary world and as an ecosystem that is managed by operators rather than being inhabited by citizens.
_Auscultating out: activities that will activate typically inert wastelands, empty or barren elements of the periphery, particularly in interstitial and ambiguous zones, whether forests or surroundings of warehouses.
_Feral contracts: ongoing exercises in diplomacy between species, sometimes through tectonic devices—burrows, dikes, huts, hives—to open or heal channels of relationship between diverse bodies that navigate the outskirts.
_Impure ecology: study of the spurious life forms that emerge and consolidate in the often-damaged peri-urban biomes: vacant lots, legal or illegal landfills, streams, groves, industrial parks.
As Fundació Eina's artistic experimentation platform, einaidea challenges the edges of both the academic realm and creative disciplines, articulating an urgent need to redistribute knowledge and agency through its programs. In line with this stance, PERI\FERAL mobilizes blocks of poetic-political possibilities within a situated framework: the program aims to become, throughout its duration, a community from which to inhabit the city’s margins to process its forces and tensions, rethink our modes of agency, and generate new strategies for production, creation, and construction.
Structure and format
With ramified and vascular aims, the spring 2027 PERIFERAL programme offers an intensive ten-week training course, followed by the public presentation of the project. During the training period,moments of research, both personal and tutored, will alternate with moments of knowledge transmission by leading creative practitioners and researchers. They will guide processes of collective exploration in the territories surrounding Barcelona. Together with each invited practice,PERIFERAL will explore multiple formats that will be assembled, superimposed and brought into dialogue with one another. The programme will include the collaboration of the artist, curator and writer David Bestué; Jordi Colomer, artist and co-curator of einaidea's Emboscadas programme; Patricia Dauder, artist; forty five degrees, architecture and research studio (Berlin); Lara García Díaz, researcher and designer; María García Ruiz, artist, architect and researcher; Sunny Graves, sound artist and music producer; Mathias Klenner, sound artist and architect; Mireia Molina Costa, artist, writer and editor; Joan Rieradevall, ecologist and associate professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering and principal investigator of the Sostenipra group at the Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals (ICTA) of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona; José Luis Uribe, architect, filmmaker and professor at the School of Architecture of the Universidad de Talca (Chile); and Manuel Cirauqui, curator and writer, director of einaidea.
PERIFERAL will run for ten weeks, spread over three and a half months, from early April to mid-June 2026. The program consists of four modules, each corresponding to a different working modality:
- Module 1: Molecular Sessions
Period: 30 march - 23 April, 2027
This module's format will be hybrid, simultaneously in-person and online, to facilitate participation for those who wish to attend in person or follow the sessions remotely. This module prepares the ground for both project development and the intensive workshop phase. The Molecular Sessions will alternate between lectures, masterclasses, listening exercises, and afternoon screenings, led by international studios in architecture, ecology, art, and urban planning.
Speakers: forty five degrees, Lara García Díaz and María García Ruiz, Caterina Miralles and Mireia Molina Costa, Joan Rieradevall, José Luis Uribe, and Manuel Cirauqui, together with other speakers whose participation will be announced soon.
- Module 2: Research and Project Development (I)
Period: 12-30 April, 2027
This phase aims to identify and define each participant's unique projects. Each participant will be offered two personalized mentoring sessions, in which the einaidea teaching team will provide insights and connections to facilitate and improve the ideation and direction of each proposal. The projects should take shape in the following weeks, in preparation for their final presentation in June.
The einaidea team, together with members of the PERIFERAL teaching team, will assume the tasks of tutoring and support. The interactions during this phase will be tailored to each participant's profile.
- Module 3: Intensive Workshops
Period: 3-28 May, 2027
Over four weeks, the intensive workshops will use artistic methodologies as prisms to address periferal areas in specific locations on the outskirts of Barcelona. The duration of each workshop will vary depending on the invited instructor, ranging from one to four days. Each instructor will focus on a specific peripheral area, developing their workshop between that area and Eina Bosc. Their perspectives will be highly diverse, as are their individual trajectories, although they will share the common thread of artistic experimentation and research applied to specific projects.
Instructors: David Bestué, Jordi Colomer, Patricia Dauder, Lara García Díaz and María García Ruiz, Mathias Klenner, Sunny Graves, LUCE, Benedetta Tagliabue, Caterina Miralles.
- Module 4: Research and Project Development (II) + Public Presentation
Period: 1-15 June, 2027
Over these two weeks, the aim is to intensify each participant's research and provide support to help them fully develop their proposals, in view of their public presentation as projects, prototypes, theorems, or fictional scenarios. The conceptual formulation and/or prototyping of the project will take place in a specific location on the outskirts of Barcelona, as its experimental context.
The einaidea team, together with members of the PERIFERAL teaching team, will assume the tasks of tutoring and support. The interactions during this phase will be tailored to each participant's profile.
Public Event: Symposium
17–20 JUNE, 2027
The public presentation of the proposals developed by each PERIFERAL participant will take place at the end of this period, in a symposium format to which an exhibition dimension will be added in the spaces of the Fundació Enric Miralles in Barcelona. Each proposal must be adapted to the typologies and logistical possibilities of the venue. Over two days, the symposium will include presentations of participants' projects along with presentations by PERIFERAL's teaching team.
Calendar and locations
The PERIFERAL program will run from 30 March to 20 June, 2027
The PERIFERAL programme will run from 30 March to 20 June 2027. The Molecular Sessions phase (online lectures) will take place from the start date until 23 April, in two phases, with the two intervening weeks devoted to research and development (R&D) of each
participant's final project. The Intensive Workshops will take place between 3 and 28 May, Monday to Thursday from 15:30 to 20:30. The main venue for the workshops will be Eina Bosc (Carrer del Bosc, 2, 08017 Barcelona), close to the Collserola natural park in Barcelona. Many of the workshops will include outings and visits to places in Barcelona and its surrounding region. The second R&D phase will take place between 1 and 15 June. It will be followed by the finalisation of work and installation, ahead of its presentation at the symposium and collective exhibition at the Fundació Enric Miralles, on 17 to 20 June.
In addition to attending the seminars, workshops and lectures that make up the programme, participants will also have access to the specialised workshops of Eina Bosc, including the model and prototype workshop, the graphic creation workshop and the Media Lab, allowing them to explore materially and in situ the research prompted by each session or workshop. All the resources of Eina, Centre Universitari de Disseny i Art de Barcelona, including study rooms, work spaces and the library, will be available to PERIFERAL participants (by reservation where necessary) throughout their enrolment period.
Prices and registration
Registration for the PERIFERAL program costs 1,960€.
Various payment options and discounts are available for Eina alumni (Bachelor's, Master's, and Postgraduate degrees), participants in previous einaidea programs (Ambushes, workshops, and seminars), and active members of the Barcelona art community. The full program fee does not include expenses such as local accommodation or additional costs like books, materials, and/or self-produced projects. However, the organization will provide support where possible to facilitate the stay and work of participants traveling from outside Barcelona.
The Eina Foundation will offer two scholarships to participate in this program free of charge, based on a combination of inclusivity and excellence in practice. Anyone wishing to apply for a scholarship must indicate their interest at the beginning of the registration process and justify their eligibility (situations of social vulnerability, exclusion, disability, and/or precariousness). To this end, the einaidea team will contact each applicant directly.
→ More information about the scolarships here
Applications and selection process
The application period for the PERIFERAL program is open until 15 March, 2027.
Those interested in participating in PERIFERAL must submit the following documentation by 11:59pm on the deadline:
- A portfolio in PDF with up to 5 projects, each with 3-4 images and a brief description up to 100 words; in an extension up to 10 pages in total.
- A motivation letter justifying the interest in the program with a brief reflection on the applicant’s own practice.
- A CV gathering present and past experience, exhibitions, presentations, publications, as well as languages and additional skills.
Application dossiers must be sent to einaidea@eina.cat, attaching the required documentation via links to external servers such as OneDrive, Google Drive, WeTransfer, or Dropbox.
The results of the application evaluation will be communicated to applicants within three weeks.
If applying for one of the scholarships, and in order to learn more about each applicant's background and/or situation, the Advisory Board may request a virtual interview with prior notice.
Certification
All participants who successfully complete the PERIFERAL 2027 program will receive a Certificate of intensive program from einaidea and Centre Universitari de Disseny i Art de Barcelona as well as a certified report detailing the activities carried out, the workshops attended with their responsible agents, and the tutorial interactions that will have accompanied the participation in the program.
What you will learn
Participation in this program enables participants to acquire fundamental skills to research, conceptualize, outline, and produce critical and/or innovative projects in contemporary creative practice, taking the contemporary city—understood as a space radically transformed by new infrastructures (information, mobility, logistics) and new ways of inhabiting and producing in these environments—as their site of inscription and application.
The PERIFERAL program initiates observation dynamics aimed at understanding the potential of spaces that lie outside the center of contemporary global cities, and its transdisciplinary approach seeks to generate a wide diversity of perspectives while equipping each participant with insights they would not have encountered by following the professional path predetermined by their original discipline. PERIFERAL’s multiplicity of formats is designed with the same objective: to energize each student’s potential to individualize their proposals and their approaches to each project. On the other hand, attendance at seminars, classes, and hands-on workshops led by faculty whose backgrounds are no less diverse and always international is aimed at naturally fostering relationships and opportunities for knowledge sharing and collaboration among students, participants, speakers, and guest practitioners.
Thru its various teaching formats (Workshops, Molecular Sessions, and Recaps), PERIFERAL will foster collective theoretical and practical learning dynamics. Personalized support for each participant will be a key aid in developing an experimental project that is methodologically and conceptually well-grounded, whether it is practically or theoretically oriented, thereby facilitating its subsequent public presentation. Thus, this program will enable participants to develop the knowledge, strategies, and skills to carry out research, formulate original art, architecture, and design projects, as well as critical reflections in essayistic or pedagogical formats.
Each participant in PERIFERAL will receive tailored support and specific references based on their profile, background, and interests, enhancing their ability to tackle and carry out creative projects of various kinds: visual art, social and/or site-specific practice, performance, architecture, writing, sound and audiovisual art, among others.
Professional opportunities
PERIFERAL equips its students to collaborate with creative agencies, studios, and organizations on urban innovation and cultural transformation projects. It is also presented as a valuable tool for applying theoretical and practical knowledge in the fields of education, research, and teaching. Having gained familiarity with a wide range of project types, each participant of PERIFERAL will enhance their ability to lead and/or coordinate research teams and projects; work in various areas of cultural management and perform critical and curatorial tasks; assume leadership roles in contemporary art and/or design thinking and creation projects; coordinate content and develop educational, research, and cultural programs; participate in innovation initiatives at research or cultural institutions and in R&D&I programs across the cultural industries; etc.
Additionally, the program aims to nurture, strengthen, expand, and contextualize the work of individuals who identify as artists, art and/or design researchers, architects, designers, philosophers, curators, critics, educators, etc., in order to improve and grow in the evolution of their practice.
Professional opportunities for PERIFERAL is situated in fields such as:
• Independent artistic practice
• Management and curatorship in museums, foundations, art centers, and galleries
• Exhibition curation and cultural programming
• Consulting on cultural projects in public spaces
• Criticism and essay writing on art and design
• Management and programming of cultural centers and citizen-oriented organizations
• Journalism and cultural communication
• Teaching in the field of art and contemporary esthetics
• Doctoral studies in the various fields of knowledge linked to the program: Fine Arts, Design, Architecture, Urban Planning, Art History, Philosophy, Humanities, Ecology, among others.
Direction and coordination: Manuel Cirauqui
Faculty advisors: Miquel Molins, Jordi Colomer, Sara Coscarelli
Communication: Laura Moreno, Mana Pinto
Graphic design: Ana Habash, Lara Coromina
20% discount for:
- Former students who have completed a Graduate, Bachelor's, Master's or Postgraduate programme at Eina
10% discount for:
- Current students of Eina
- Members of the Associació Catalana de Cistellers i Cistelleres
- Members of the Catalan Association of Glass Arts
- Members of the Catalonian Ceramist Association (ACC)
- Members of the Catalan Association of Art Critics (ACCA)
- Members of the Association of Museologists of Catalonia (AMC)
- Members of the Association of Professional Illustrators of Valencia (APIV)
- Members of the Professional Association of Illustrators of Catalonia (APIC)
- Members of the Catalonia Trade, Crafts and Fashion Consortium (CCAM), holders of the artisan card, and participants in the CCAM Young Talent programme
Jordi Colomer, Medina Parkour, 2014
