Project as part of the collective Grup d’Estudi
Faced with change, there are always two options: secure a limited resource or open yourself to the unexpected. We were raised on “better the devil you know” and “a bird in the hand”, but in Catalan the saying goes “Val més boig conegut que savi per conèixer” (better a known fool than a wise stranger), and fools have never been conservative or risk-averse. We came to play.
So Grup d’Estudi chooses the surprise box, and not just as a metaphor: it is an exhibition device designed and conceptualized by Estructuras 3000. Jenny Holzer said in the 70s that abuse of power is not surprising. Silvio Lorusso answers that abusing surprise leaves us with no power at all, since surprise leaves no room to maneuver. As curators, we chose to inhabit that uncertainty. We curated the methodologies, not the results, and let the project drift in directions even we don’t control. Even the most participatory, self-questioning institution cannot stop reproducing capitalist, extractivist and colonial biases in its selection criteria, so we experiment with anticuration, hypercuration, supracuration, turbocuration (we never settled on a name), randomizing and twisting the criteria in the hope of opening doors to work that falls outside conventional processes.
We open the box four times, revealing four projects selected through four open calls:
- Convocatòria Facilíssima (23/10/2025 to 9/11/2025).
To apply, all you had to do was fill in a form with your name and email address. A minimal gesture, in contrast to the usual process of endless dossiers, interviews and waiting for an answer. No CVs, websites or portfolios, so everyone started from the same point. There was one rule: sending anything beyond your email meant automatic disqualification. Of course, people abused it anyway.
Selection rested on an opaque, arbitrary choice rather than merit or track record.
- Concurs de truites (11/11/2025 to 30/11/2025).
Applying to an open call usually means presenting your work through a written text, photographs and a well-designed document. Those are skills in their own right: writing, photography, graphic design. You may not have them, and they often say little about the quality or interest of the work itself. For this call, we perverted that logic. Instead of judging writing or design skills, we judged cooking skills: who makes the best tortilla.
The selection criterion is entirely unrelated to artistic practice. The jury is made up of the participants themselves, there is no evaluation of the work, and Grup d’Estudi stays out of the process altogether.
- El rumor (2/12/2025 to 21/12/2025).
An invitation spreads by word of mouth: anyone who shows up at La Capella at the appointed time gets to exhibit, provided the fees are split among everyone present. Each member of Grup d’Estudi could tell only one person, who could tell only one more. This chain of favors lets us reflect on limited resources, give up control over who and how many will exhibit, and put pressure on supposed good practices like horizontality and assembly-based governance.
- La ruleta de la suerte (23/12/2025 to 18/1/2026).
Selection is rarely based on the proposal alone. Juries also weigh factors that never appear in the call, like how charming you are, how much of a suck-up you are, or how much of your texts feel chatgpt'd. For this call, we made those factors explicit. Participants were invited to suggest any criterion a jury might be using that has nothing to do with the art proposal. Each applicant then filled in a form rating, from 1 to 5, how well they felt represented by each factor.
On deliberation day we used two wheels of fortune. The first held the factors and decided which ones carried the most weight. The second held the names and faces of all the candidates. Every time the factors wheel changed the weights, the probability distribution on the people wheel changed with it. Spin by spin, we eliminated candidates one by one until a single winner remained.
