A meeting that is really a farewell. Although it is also a celebration. Walking through a strange oasis submerged among plants flanking false walls of nineties architecture. All this forms part of an octagonal landscape crowned by a dome, which – they say – is capable of capturing energies and sounds. A dome like a metronome that hypnotises. Solstici-Janus is born of an event that is about to take place: the transfer of Sala d’Art Jove to a new space. This relocation means continuing to sustain the institution outside the context that has configured it, with an awareness that every relocation not only affects the physical structure, but also the communal ties that define it and with which it coexists.

In order to conceptualise this jornada, we have drawn on two images that give shape and name to the performative session. On the one hand, we have invoked the winter solstice two days before its arrival, and we thus gather to pre-celebrate the longest night. In alchemy, the Solstice is assimilated to a moment of renewal in which the earth prepares itself for the future concoction of the alchemist. On the other hand, Janus appears, that double-faced divinity who opens the door to the new while simultaneously keeping one foot in the recent past. This figure stands in a state of liminality, embracing change, moving away from the binary and allowing multiple realities to coexist simultaneously. With all this, Solstici-Janus clasps onto the future without wanting to define it, but instead offering time to co-inhabit this moment of shared uncertainty and to amass that which cannot be named.

In this way, Solstici-Janus wishes to approach the building that has housed Sala d’Art Jove since its inauguration. A building that has been the administrative headquarters of l’Agència Catalana de la Joventut, but which, at the same time, the residents have used as a shortcut between the islands of houses in Carrer Calàbria and Carrer Rocafort in l’Eixample Esquerra; or which has also served as a meeting place for the liceistes, who proposed collective viewings of operas programmed at the Liceu for senior citizens. In and of itself, this building has hosted these and many other actions that today have become memories. During this jornada, we propose to move away from the architectural logics that have determined the place in order to think about other uses and alternative narratives. We appeal to the movement of our bodies to shed new light on the gestures and routes that, over the years, have been continually repeated in corridors, offices and staircases.

This meeting is an invitation to simply be, to feel and for our bodies to become familiar with those architectural corners that have rarely been visited. To this end, we have invited four artists who, at one time or another, have formed part of Sala d’Art Jove. With “a l’aguait!” Joana Capella Buendia welcomes us incognito, proposing a tour with a “delay” through the different rooms of the building, rethinking the format of the guided tour. She takes us through games, intertwining playful dynamics and proposing a kind of obstacle course. The building becomes a labyrinth where she will play hide-and-seek with the public, who will come across traces she leaves behind. We will then move to the auditorium where we will experience a trio of acts entitled “tres posibles guiones para salir del apuro” by txe roimeser, who proposes to remember and re-imagine the idea of moving, of failure and of how to prepare the body. He places us in the Eixample, in his memories and shares a playlist to accompany us during times of change. We conclude under the cupola with the performance “Bigotis” by Estel Boada and Daniel Moreno Roldán, where we are introduced to a caretaker who is tired of the artists and curators of Barcelona, and his best friend, Bigotis, an endearing rat that lives in the shadow of Sala d’Arte Jove, who are the last beings to occupy the building before the final move.

These three proposals are guides, gestures and sounds that will remain in our imaginations and thus allow us to face uncertain futures, but accompanied by collectively built memories.