In the artist's shoes: the students of Master's Degreeat programs of studyof Curating take part in a workshop with Daniel Canogar

The students of the IV promotion of the Master's Degreeat programs of studyof Commissariat of the Museo Universidad de Navarra have completed the subject"The curator and the artist", with a workshop in which they have put aside the role of curator to put on the shoes of the artist under the guideof Daniel Canogar (Madrid, 1964). For four days, the students approached the role of the creator and devised their own proposals at group. As Canogar explains, the workshop, which he is giving for the third time at postgraduate program, "invites the participants, future curators, to put themselves in the artist's shoes, to get involved in the artistic process and understand the dynamics of conceptualisation and then the execution of ideas and projects".

For him, it is "fundamental for them to know what the process of work is in order to understand this curatorial work. Sometimes the two fields are excessively separated, when in reality the curatorial workis also creative and the artist must make a curatorial workof their own projects. This is a way of bringing the two fields together as part of the same artistic reality.

The course, with a workshop methodology, was structured in four parts , each of which consisted of three parts, conference. At the beginning, Canogar held a presentationin which different themes were worked on, based on his own work and that of other artists and phenomena of visual culture. Teams were then formed to develop express artistic projects related to the issues raised. The event ended with a shared analysis of the results, commenting on the successes, pointing out what didn't work well and debating on how to approach the same questions from the different perspectives of the participants.

María Castella Piqueras, a student of the MCS and graduate in Art History from the University of Granada, stresses that the contribution of this workshop has been core topicto broaden her perspective: "My relationship with art has always been from the side of the viewer, the visitor. Discovering it through the eyes of the artist has been something new for me and has helped me to reaffirm an idea: the revaluation of the role of artists in society. Art is not something secondary or dispensable, but it is necessary to rethink the way in which we approach it".

His colleague Celeste Garduño Carvajal, also an art historian from the Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City and curator at the Tlatelolco centre of the Universidad Autónoma de México, values the experience very positively: "It's been incredible to be able to work and learn with an artist as renowned and widely travelled as Daniel Canogar. It has given us the opportunity to get to know his experience and trajectory, as well as to get to know one of the key points for curatorship and curatorial programs of study, the role of the artist". In this sense, she values that, "as curators in the contemporary context, one of the essential tasks is to have the capacity to interact and work with artists from all over subject, for which it is fundamental to have a sensitivity and approach to their work. Sometimes we take a dangerous distance from the works exhibited, forgetting that there is a whole process, sensitivity and knowledge behind them. Therefore, getting to know the other side of the artistic processes with this subjectof workshops enriches curatorial practices and the work of the managementcultural".

On the dynamics of the workshop and the themes dealt with, Garduño adds: "The first day we worked on topicof colours and perspectives; the second day we analysed the concept of ruins. On the third, the workshop revolved around perceptions of the phantasmagoric. As a closing and final project, we explored the free theme, about concepts, emotions or ideas that affect us staffand socially today. In each session, original, striking and powerful creations emerged, both plastically and thematically, forming an artistic whole of which we all felt a part".