UP-ART Collective

A place to learn, a feminist space, a space free from gender constraints.

A group of teachers from the School of Art and Design of the Diputación in Tarragona (EADT) created the Up-Art collective in 2019, to delve into themes related to feminism. The collective was formed with the intention of expanding the activities held on International Women's Day and with the aim of creating a dialogue space between faculty and students through various activities.

The faculty involved in this project aims to "enhance thought and knowledge," as explained by EADT professor and Up-Art promoter, Núria Anguren. "Art allows us to make visible what is invisible in society," she adds.

Up-Art is a collective of people who think with and as the school and is also a place where the commitment to education is present in both words and actions. A collective that shares an educational space and is fully aware that teaching is expansive, a collective that knows that the knowledge transmitted and received is fundamental for the mature growth of a society, and that this knowledge must be nourished with feminist consciousness.

Up-Art is and will be what we want it to be, but above all: a place to learn, a feminist space, a space free from gender constraints, a place to make contributions aimed at understanding diversity, a place that promotes inclusion, a place to unpack LGBTI realities, a place where the individual will be the center and reason for growing together.

In a school where critical and theoretical discourse is given, space must be provided to question and deconstruct or reconstruct information from other perspectives. To contrast theorization with current and historical life experiences. To be able to question possible reasons, challenge everything announced, and explore every possibility to do things differently while seeking all possible information in a quest for questions.

Cycles of conferences and debates to discuss the role of women in art and society.

Throughout 2019, a series of conferences titled 'We Are Memory' was held, presenting a critical and theoretical discourse that deconstructed memory and reconstructed it from different perspectives, with a feminist consciousness; explaining history through small gestures.

Thus, the series began on November 19, 2019, with a lecture by historian Patricia Martínez, followed by lectures on February 12, 2020, by art historian Laura Mercader and clown Pepa Plana, and on March 5, 2020, with a round table moderated by journalist Marta Rius and a lecture by professor Núria Arauna.

Other topics addressed by the collective include in 2020/2021 'We Are Nature' with Cecília Bofarull, Blanca Callén, and Gabriella Bettini; in 2022 'We Are Genders', an approach to transgender issues through art with Lina Mulero, Oriol Grau, Mònica López and Gelo, and screenings of documentaries and various performances; and in 2023 'We Are Art' with students taking the lead in carrying out various actions throughout the School.