“Democracy” exhibition grills the public on power & violence

PALMA
SOCIO-POLITICAL art group “Democracia” will be coming from Madrid to the Pilar and Joan Miro Foundation in Palma this weekend to launch a hard-hitting exhibition, questioning the public on the use it makes of power and violence in the name of free speech.

In a specially commissioned project entitled “Against the Public” probing the more unpleasant depths of mass culture, the exhibition ekes out a response from the public on how it views democracy has shaped the political realities of today. One section, “Proyecto Baleares” makes a comparison between what the old Bulletin sister newspaper Baleares printed on 21st April, 1942 and what came out in the newspaper on Wednesday this week. “Two different eras, 68 years apart, with one element in common, the newspaper,” explained Miguel Serra, the editor of the new look dBalears at the presentation of the exhibition on Wednesday. “The reader can witness how society is developing through the work of journalists in the media,” he explained.

Public conscience is touched by a separate installation at the exhibition entitled “Charity,” comprising rubbish container bins stuffed with black plastic bags. If visitors get a little closer, they can reportedly get a whiff of what food smells like when it is picked up by the homeless and unemployed after it is thrown out of the back doors of supermarkets. “Democracia” also explores how the public react when they come across spaces which are intended for peaceful use, such as sports stadiums and park installations, daubed with political propaganda and graffiti - possibly in Arabic, or across pictures of bodies mutilated in the aftermath of the Al-Qaeda attacks in Madrid.

The ethos questions the moral “no man's land” of neoliberalism and asks: “Why can't public space be a point of consensus instead of conflict?”