A Movement to Hold: Diversorium – a conversation with Maria Oliver and Veronica Valentini

A Movement to Hold is an open archive of artistic representations, focused on re-visiting immaterial, critical and non-hegemonic experiences and is led by freelance curator Alba Folgado. Through different creative processes – including performances, interventions and presentations  – A Movement to Hold aims to rethink collective creation and criticality. 

For this event, A Movement to Hold invites activist and scholar Maria Oliver and curator Veronica Valentinito to talk about Diversorium, a project that comes out of the expressed desire of two functional diversity activists for a communal space. In this conversation, Valentini and Oliver will detail Diversorium’s desire for a space in which to come together and celebrate, to "dance with" the various affective, invisibilized communities in the city and "move" beyond the discrimination that separates and plagues our communities. For them, this space is as necessary as it is desired as, despite some advances made by social justice movements, social equality is still nowhere near close enough. 

Taking cue from previous projects such as Yes, we Fuck!, a project produced with Maria Oliver and Antonio Centeno together with OVI-Oficina de Vida Independiente's members and other participants, Diversorium aims to explore the cultural and social meaning of difference by developing new forms of cooperation, interaction, and connection between people.

Diversorium has been presented between 2020 and 2022 in different formats at Sala Apolo, Festival Primavera PRO, Festival BAM, Rambla del Raval and Festes Mercé, 2022. It has collaborated with artist Osias Yanov among others. Additionally, Diversorium has been selected as a participating project in the Festival Escena Poblenou/Centre Civic Can Felipa, and in the Culturopolis, International Days on Cultural Rights, Parallel 62 and El Molino, 2022 organised by Barcelona City Council.

Maria Oliver holds a PhD in French philology and has worked as university lecturer, translator and sporadic poet. She has been an activist since 12 years ago, when her uncertainty led her to live with functional diversity and to see the other side of the mirror. Oliver is member of the OVI-Office of Independent Living in Barcelona. Furthermore, she has participated in various cultural projects linked to functional diversity such as "Trèvols de 4 fulles", "Vivir i altres ficcions", "Yes, we fuck", "Nexos", and sexual assistance - "Tus manos, mis manos".

Veronica Valentini is a curator working in the fields of visual arts, education and social context. She is Head of International Residencies and Networks at Hangar (Barcelona), founder director at BAR project, E.M.M.A., and mediator for Concomitentes, a Citizen Art program supported by Carasso Foundation. In this position, she has developed, together with functional diversity activists, a civic art commission entitled "Diversorium. Live arts and a space for coexistence".

This conversation has been initiated by Alba Folgado in collaboration with MDT and is possible thanks to the support of the Swedish Art Grants Committee.