They Wanted Arms but People Arrived

A Radio Series on Migration and Domestic Work

Sunday, 28 February 2021 - 12pm
Admission

Free, until full capacity is reached, with prior ticket collection on the Museo Reina Sofía website from 10 am on 26 February. A maximum of 1 per person. Punctuality is required give that en-try will not be allowed once the activity is under way. Doors open at 11:30am

Place
Nouvel Building, Auditorum 400
Organised by
Museo Situado
Coordinated by
Territorio Doméstico
Ela Rabasco (Ela R que R),  They Wanted Arms but People Arrived. Presentation in CaixaForum, Madrid, 2020
Ela Rabasco (Ela R que R), They Wanted Arms but People Arrived. Presentation in CaixaForum, Madrid, 2020

They Wanted Arms but People Arrived is a radio series and theatre piece on migration and domestic work, written and performed by women from the Territorio Doméstico (Domestic Territory) association and featuring the participation of sound artist Susana Jiménez Carmona and the work cooperative Pandora Mirabilia. Its mise en scène is overseen by actress, playwright and director Sandra Arpa. In the piece, the unwelcome experiences of three migrant women who live in Madrid are narrated, recounting their experiences of negotiating borders, dealing with labour abuses and combining care with their own lives on both sides of the Atlantic.

The project was among those selected in the call for the Art for Change “la Caixa” programme (2019), which supports initiatives encompassing the participation of collectives in vulnerable situations or people from the same environment or neighbourhood so as to foster social improvement.

The activity will be followed by a conversation with the participants, touching on their experiences of how the project has developed, from its creation to the final arrangement and presentation.

Participants

Territorio Doméstico, which came into being in 2006, is a space of encounter, care and women’s struggles, mostly migrant women’s, for the recognition of their diminished rights as domestic workers and to give care work more visibility. In 2019, they released the record Sin nosotras se para el mundo (Without Women the World Stops), a compilation of songs that give a voice to the situation these female workers face and were played on the streets to animatedly vindicate their struggles.

Susana Jiménez Carmona holds a PhD in Humanities and Culture from the University of Girona. Her work flows between music, sound art and philosophy, and from 2010 to 2016 she coordinated the initiative Jane’s Walk in Madrid (related in the book El paseo de Jane. Tejiendo redes a pie de calle, Modernito Books, 2016) and from 2015 to 2018 she was part of the project Sound Carers in Matadero, Madrid. She has collaborated with different stage art companies, artists and collectives.

Pandora Mirabilia is a work cooperative founded in 2007 and made up of women with a feminist and multidisciplinary gaze. Feminism and the gender perspective are the cornerstones of their actions, and they work in a network with other cooperatives and are part of Madrid’s social and solidary economy. Their most recent publications include ¡Imparables!: feminismos y LGTB+ (Astronave, 2018) and Un cuento propio: historias para escuchar y leer, heroínas por descubrir, with Camila Monasterio and with illustrations by Irene Cuesta (TakaTuka, 2018).