Extramural is an art project by the Museu Tàpies that sees the city as a place for intervention and mediation. Its multidisciplinary, plural approach is based on three main axes of dialogue: inter-institutional, with the public space and with the environment.
Organised by the Museu Tàpies with the continuing collaboration of the Festival Grec and EINA Centre Universitari de Disseny i Art de Barcelona, Extramural proposes to physically and symbolically go beyond institutional boundaries, to situate itself in the public space. The aim is to reimagine the role of the museum in a more horizontal, permeable concept as part of the city, in order to find new ways of inhabiting it and thinking about it collectively.
This way, the city—and the idea of inhabiting it from multiple perspectives—becomes material to work on and experiment with, generating a range of interconnections between institutions, communities and urban ecosystems. In this respect, the public space is seen here as a field for mediation and reciprocity, where relations between citizens, nature and culture are reformulated through artistic practice.
Inspired by the theories of situated knowledge and by the relationship between subject and setting, Extramural sees the environment as the living space we inhabit and transform, beyond the walls of the institution. It sets out to be a collaborative practice of dialogue in response to the needs of our time—the environmental crisis, social inequalities and the challenges of city life—and to generate new community narratives able to rethink today’s metropolis.
Thus, every year Extramural reaffirms its commitment to sustainability, inclusion and cooperation, demonstrating that art can act as a driver of social and urban change. The project invites us to rethink our role as citizens and as a community in a global context marked by inequality, neoliberalism and the climate emergency, emphasising the critical, transformational power of art as a tool for imagining other shared ways of life.
Editions:
Extramural 2024: Serge Attukwei Clottey. Beyond the skin, curated by Imma Prieto.
Extramural 2025. Elena del Rivero. Transiting La quema, curated by Mateo Feijoo.
