BARCELONA.- Running from 19 September to 8 December 2014, the exhibition by the Portuguese artist opens the cycle Lesson 0, curated by Azotea (Ane Agirre and Juan Canela). The 2014–15 cycle at Espai 13 is a reflection on art education today, and in particular on the new forms of transmission of knowledge.

Priscila Fernandes focuses on the legacy of Francesc Ferrer i Guàrdia, founder of the Modern School, and conjectures what form of art education this pedagogic system would have taken had it been developed. The starting point of the exhibition is the book edited by the artist ¿Y el arte? The Book of Aesthetic Education of the Modern School, whose title, borrowed from the last item in the School Bulletin, is also taken as the title of the exhibition. Copies of the publication, including texts from before 1909, are distributed in the gallery space to be consulted together with other publications by the School.

Priscila Fernandes’ installation constructs a classroom within Espai 13, including all the furnishings and material necessary for an educational programme, together with some reproductions of artworks and posters and her recently published book. The installation has a double function, since the exhibited elements are to be used in the educational activities related to the project, with the distribution of the tables and chairs varying according to the use of the space.

The programme of pedagogic mediation contained in Lesson 0, Friction Pedagogies, offers a course of teacher training, with some sessions open to the public. Educators, artists and theoreticians will discuss initiatives of pedagogic transformation, as well as art education and creativity. These activities will be announced in the gallery space with a series of posters integrated into the installation. Based on these discussions, teachers will generate education proposals to be developed in their schools in relation to the following exhibitions in the cycle Lesson 0.

Lesson 0 is a cycle of exhibitions at the Fundació Joan Miró’s Espai 13 taking place in 2014–15. It is a transversal project curated by Azotea (Ane Agirre and Juan Canela), which reflects on the current state of art education. The cycle includes four exhibition projects featuring Priscila Fernandes, Rita Ponce de León, Anna Craycroft / Marc Vives in collaboration with Rivet and Eva Kotatkova. They explore, imagine and research different ways of learning in relation to the exhibition space. The four projects are based on Friction Pedagogies, a programme of educational mediation conducted by Aida Sánchez de Serdio, Cristian Añó (Sinapsis) and Rachel Fendler.

Priscila Fernandes
Portugal, 1981. Lives and works in Rotterdam (Netherlands).

Her work has recently been included in exhibitions such as Playgrounds (Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid), Learning for Life (Henie-Onstad Kunstcentre, Oslo), Abstract Possible: Stockholm Synergies (Tensta Konsthall, Stockholm) and After the Future (EVA International Biennial, Limerick). She has won the prestigious EDP Novos Artistas (Portugal) and the Prix de Rome (Netherlands). She is currently in receipt of a production grant from the Mondrian Fonds (Netherlands) and a research grant from the O&O Research Centrum Beeldende Kunst (Rotterdam). In 2011, she had a residency at IASPIS (Stockholm) and is currently in residence at the Künstlerhaus Bethanien (Berlin).