The City Within is a new type of exhibition that explores the relationships between ideas and people, spaces and times, proposing creative connections and intuitions that draw us into the experience of the city, in a context of questioning and replacement or dissolution of models of power between generations, classes and genders, between the city within and the countryside within, and in a post-pandemic dystopian scenario that characterises the so-called Rural Galaxy of the techno-city.

The City Within also involves a journey through three biographies. Following the symbolism of the number 3, as Dante Alighieri did in his Divine Comedy, we embark on this journey through the city supported by the exemplary trajectories of three masters, to wit, a philosopher, a musician and a writer, who, assuming the role of guides/gurus/sherpas, lead us into the interior of the city. They are Javier Echeverría (Pamplona, Navarra, 1948), Llorenç Barber (Aielo de Malferit, Valencia, 1948) and Noni Benegas (Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1947). Our goal is to synthesise their paths of knowledge into concepts and perceptions that help to unravel the meaning of essential questions: where do we come from, where are we going?

In a transversal way, these ideas or paths of knowledge proposed by our three Sherpas will be “unveiled/recreated/illuminated” by 12 illustrators who will convert these concepts into images, as the master stained glass artists once did in medieval cathedrals. Indeed, our experience of the rural galaxy is somewhat akin to a return to the Middle Ages.

In social innovation, artists, creators and thinkers can and must be factors of dissonance that serve to uncover new interrelationships and links in the processes of coexistence, creation and interpersonal development. In addition to the concepts that our guides explore, the exhibition also features a selection of visual poems by Noni Benegas; a sound installation by Llorenç Barber, Sambori/Rayuela, together with some of his visual scores; and books, interviews and time stamps that reflect and record these exemplary trajectories in the form of a biopic.

José Tono Martínez is curator of thei project. He studied social anthropology and received a PhD in Philosophy. He co-founded La Luna de Madrid and was its director between 1985 and 1987. He has been director of cultural centres, foundations and museums. A writer and essayist, he collaborates with Claves de la Razón Práctica and Revista de Occidente. His recent curatorships include Posters for a Way (2019-22), Consejo Jacobeo/BNE/MCyD; Hassan Fathy/Hannah Collins (2021-22), Casa Árabe; Pablo Pérez-Mínguez, Regional Archive CAM/El Águila (2022).
He has written several books; He Who Wounds from Afar, Huerga, 2015; Sons of Thunder. Myths and Symbols. Evohé, 2015; The King of Ramnagar. Polibea. 2017; The Fourth Seal. Polibea. 2020; The Ring of Giges. Heterodox Pilgrimages around Santiago. Evohé, 2021.

Design: PeiPe
Works (and formalised concepts): Llorenç Barber, Noni Benegas y Javier Echeverría
Illustrations: Juan Berrio, José Domingo, Irati Fernández Gabarain, Elena Ibáñez, Pere Joan, Raquel Lagartos, Delius/María Delia Lozupone, Miguelanxo Prado, Pepa Prieto Puy, Rep/Miguel Repiso, Antonia Santolaya, Mikel Valverde
Video, podcast and soundtrack: Javi Álvarez