"The Diversorium shows what the reality of functional diversity can do for all of us".

Interview with Veronica Valentini, mediator of the Barcelona concomitance, Diversorium.

Defined as a curator and researcher, Veronica Valentini lives and works in Barcelona on issues related to the creation of the public sphere, developing her practice in multiple formats such as exhibitions, public residency programmes, training and research. She is also a mediator for the Barcelona concomitance, Diversorium, a project that reflects the desire of two activists, Antonio Centeno y Maria Oliver, The project, which was also impacted by the pandemic, is a space for functional diversity to have a meeting place and a party to «dance» together with the different affective and invisible communities in the city. This process of development and self-discovery, also impacted by the pandemic, is recounted in this interview in which he uncovers what has been done, what they are doing, and what remains to be done.

What is cultural management for you? 

Cultural management is the hard disk of the projects where, among data, spreadsheets and other things, we host plural stories, share desires and build collective imaginaries. It is also a powerful plastic tool that can change the rigid administrative structures of cultural institutions. It is the place from which “you can make things happen, as well as create rules and regulations”, as he puts it Teresa Cisneros, In the interview published by Editorial Concreta, where he points out that the figure of the administrator or cultural manager is much more influential than the figure of the curator, as is often thought, and only because he or she is more exposed. 

How would you define the role of a mediator, and has this definition changed for you since you joined Concomitentes?

I like to think of the mediator as an organism responsible for the relationships between people and ideas, as it has to do with processes in constant transformation. Being a mediator in a project like Concomitentes gives you the possibility to experiment with co-creation processes. It is like being part of a kind of parliament in which your audience is participating and active, not passive and mere spectators. Of course, there is also the care, listening and attention that are essential.

What spaces, methodologies and mediation strategies have been created in your project to promote reflection, research and exchange? 

The Diversorium is the first space for celebration and meeting initiated by the will of a group of people with functional diversity open to all bodies. It is a leisure space that operates from the social and experiential, governed by interdependence and abundance. For this reason, we wanted the mediation process, which in part constitutes the work of the project itself, to be collectivised from the beginning, learning and unlearning through dialogue, performance, dance and enjoyment. This gave rise to the idea of organising the parties in popular and commercial places, from neighbourhood parties to the Apolo night club, although we were only able to hold one because of the pandemic. However, now we are investigating how to develop, spatially and empathetically, a brave space (brave/challenging space) that is also welcoming (welcome). It is bell hooks who speaks of wanting to overcome the idea of safe space (safe space) and opt for a brave space that encourages “cultivating a community together that allows for risk, the risk of meeting someone outside your own boundaries”.

What has the process of working together with the commissioners been like, how has it enriched you, and any lessons to be learned?

Assiduous, close and intermittent at the same time, due to the pandemic and a pregnancy. What this project aims to show is not only what the creation of a leisure space can do for people with functional diversity, but also what the reality of functional diversity can do for all of us. That's why I talk about the idea of abundance: Society classifies you into boxes, spaces and rules, whereas if you think about functional diversity the barriers of all these limits are broken.

What would you say have been the main challenges that have arisen with your concomitance? And which ones do you face in the medium term?

We have sought to intervene in “the real”, that is to say, to hold the parties in normative spaces such as a discotheque and the public space of the Poblenou neighbourhood in Barcelona. Unfortunately, the pandemic has made this whole plan that we had developed very well impossible, showing the “social distancing”, a condition that people with functional diversity live with on a daily basis and that the project aims to overcome. Now it remains for us to approach Barcelona City Council to obtain the continued use of a space in the city that we have already located and, from there, to determine whether the work will be ephemeral or whether it will be a permanent intervention.