Walls Could Talk. The Archive-Cave

How can the walls of the Fundació Miró speak for themselves? Can archival material be understood as the inner organs of a museum? How can we make historical documentation inhabitable - a protective and comforting cave?

This activity is inspired by a comic strip featuring Gaston Lagaffe, a character created by cartoonist André Franquin in the 1950s (known as Sergi Grapes in the Catalan version published in Cavall Fort). Gaston Lagaffe was born in 1957, first appearing in issue 985 of the Belgian youth magazine Le Journal de Spirou. Gaston works as an apprentice at the Dupuis publishing house, where his inventions and work philosophy disrupt the company and create chaos. He embodies the figure of the misfit, the primitive. Like Miró, he destroys to build something new.

1957, the year Gaston was born, also marks the birth of the Situationist movement: Gaston is a revolutionary beatnik. As the company's archivist, he builds himself a cave using all the archival material at hand, turning documentation into a shelter of comfort.

For this workshop, artist Dani Montlleó invites us to create our own archive-cave, reclaiming the importance and value of archival and documentary practices, and imbuing knowledge and memory with qualities of comfort, safety, and formal plasticity.