We draw from our head through our body to our hands, towards the paper. We train head and hand, concludes Carmen José, but how can we involve the whole body more closely? That is what her R&D plan is about. Through movement exercises and in dialogue with artists and art teachers, she wanted to develop a way to collectively activate bodies, together, in relation to space, so that you get different perspectives on visualizing a concept and questioning inherited structures, unlearning visual stereotypes. Her goal is “to explore the awareness of ourselves and our environment by drawing and moving together.” Her research would take place in Rotterdam and Shantiniketan (India) where she was invited to Under the mango tree: a self-organized unlearning gathering of small-scale artist-led initiatives, schools and libraries with a focus on indigenous practices.

José's artistic practice consists of visual arts, education, research, publication and project coordination. After a bachelor's study in Madrid, she obtained her master's degree in visual communication at the Kunsthochschule in Kassel in 2016, after which she became part of the anEducation team of documenta 2017 in 14. Part of it was a first Under the mango tree meeting, between Kassel and Athens. Her experience with the anEducation team motivated her to start her own research in Rotterdam. In Slinge, where she has her studio, she works with the Future Field collective on questions about what a garden can be.

She started the R&D trajectory by collecting drawings, videos, text, books and audio from conversations with artists. It was about embodied practices, she also did archival research into the imagery and transformation processes of Marie Neurath and the Isotype imagery. She processed this study material for her contribution in India and later for her presentation in the Growing Space Wielewaal in Rotterdam, of which she is coordinator and co-initiator. There she concluded the research in September 2020 with a small meeting, based on the insights already gained. She hopes to continue these conversations in a series of meetings around these research questions.