Olga Olivera-Tabeni
Statement
The works of Olga Olivera-Tabeni (Lleida, 1972) can be understood as spaces of resistance and dissent within the current economic order, the prevailing capitalism. In her artworks, she highlights and proposes alternatives, such as the reclamation of weeds and unproductive margins, as resources that have not yet been depleted by the economy. In other propositions, she directly critiques the ravages of capitalism and patriarchy, like the scar on the landscape left by the failed cement plant on the banks of the Ebro River in Almatret, or in the case of women accused of witchcraft who were pursued and massacred. In this regard, Olga Olivera-Tabeni, building upon research processes, combats collective amnesia and points out the mechanisms of discrimination and exploitation that the political and economic system employs over the territory and people.
Antoni Jové. Curator. Excerpt from a text created for the 12th Leandre Cristòfol Art Biennial, at the Centre d'Art la Panera in Lleida.
Olga Olivera-Tabeni (Lleida, 1972)
She holds a degree in Fine Arts from the Sant Jordi Faculty, University of Barcelona. She was a temporary collaborator at the MACBA through a University-Museum agreement. She is an associate member and has been part of the board of PAAC, the Catalan Artists’ Assembly Platform, and is also associated with MAV, Women in the Visual Arts.
Olga Olivera-Tabeni's most notable recent works have been exhibited at Mapamundistas 2024 in Pamplona, as well as Roots and Horizons. More than a century of art and Crossings. Deposits from the National Collection of Photography and Contemporary Art, both at the Morera Museum, Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Lleida. She also participated in Imaginarios Multiespecies. El arte de vivir en un mundo de contingencia e incertidumbre, at La Capella in Barcelona and the Art Center La Panera in Lleida. Her work was included in the 12th Leandre Cristòfol Art Biennial and the Art and Nature Creation Grants 2017-18, both at La Panera Art Center in Lleida.
She has also participated in other biennials, such as the Tarragona Provincial Council Art Biennial, BADT2021 at the Tarragona Museum of Modern Art, and BIAM 2020 at Lo Pati, Art Center of the Ebro Lands, Amposta.
Her work has been shown at ECA in Riba-Roja de Túria, Valencia, as well as in Valencia at Fundación La Posta and Women in Work. Mujer, arte y trabajo en la globalización at UPV.
She has exhibited in the VIII International Textile Art Biennial, WTA, Sustainable City, in Madrid, Mulier Mulieris at the University of Alicante Museum, In the Name of the Mother, in the Name of the Earth at ACVIC in Vic, and at the Casa de la Imagen in La Rioja, Logroño.
Additionally, she participated in Ars Natura at the Royal Alcázar Hall in Seville, at the Marguerida de Montferrato Foundation in Balaguer, and ARBAR, Center for Art and Culture, in the Speculative Fermentations cycle in La Vall de Santa Creu, Port de la Selva, Girona.
She has also exhibited at the Lo Pardal Foundation in Agramunt, the Cervera Museum, Forma Balaguer. Contemporary Art Spaces, and the Gothic Hall of the Lleida Studies Institute. Her work has been shown at the University of Lleida, the Embarrat Festival in Tàrrega, and Errant, Itineraries of Art and Thought. Other venues include Culturgest in Lisbon, MASKollektiv Project, Pilar Riberaygua Gallery in Andorra, and the Paper Museum in Capellades, among others.
She has collaborated on various projects with gallery owner and cultural project promoter Ramon Sicart.
Her works are part of collections at the University of Lleida, the Marguerida de Montferrato Foundation, and the National Museum of Art of Catalonia (MNAC), among others.
She has completed artist residencies at CAN in Farrera through the Art and Nature grants of La Panera in Lleida, CDAN in Huesca, and CAN in Farrera; at Kárstica in Cuenca, with support from La Neomudéjar and Zapadores in Madrid; at ACUR, the Tàrrega archive; and at ADDEND in Morera de Montsant, Tarragona, as well as ARBAR in La Vall de Santa Creu, Girona.
She has created artistic routes such as One Day Walking Around Eight Properties, an activity within the 12th Leandre Cristòfol Art Biennial in Lleida, and the Graf Route for Contemporary Territory.
She has also published works, including Punk Transhumance: How to Return to the Neolithic and Crafts as One of the Fine Arts, both for Addend, Inventory Attempt for Lleida Studies Institute, Folding Walls. Instruction Manual for DUODA, Women’s Research Center at the University of Barcelona. Other works include Pyrenees: Living Archaeology, Disturbance Herbarium, Counterplan Manifesto, Holes, Colorimetries of the Ebro Riverbank, An Action to Buy Shares, and Perimetric Chromatographies, among others.
She has conducted workshops such as Walking Below the Surface: Fort of San Cristóbal and Bottle Cemetery, taught alongside Amaia Molinet at the Citadel of Pamplona, Fort San Cristóbal, and Bottle Cemetery, with support from the Huarte Center and Mapamundistas, Pamplona. Other workshops include A Disobedient Florist for the 2019 Grand Tour of Nave Côclea in Camallera, Girona; Viola x Wittrockiana and Other Thoughts at the Autonomous University of Barcelona; and projects like Encaixa’t at the La Panera Art Center.
Her conferences and discussions are also noteworthy, including events with Anne-Laure Boyer, Amaia Molinet, and Olga Olivera-Tabeni at the Citadel of Pamplona, Mutant Ecologies in Contemporary Art IV: Machinic Capitalism, Molecular Beings, and Subsistential Territories, the 4th AGI International Symposium on Art, Globalization, and Interculturality at the University of Barcelona, with collaboration from the Department of Art History and Social History at the University of Lleida and MACBA. She has also participated in the Art and Nature Conferences at Rovira i Virgili University in Tarragona, Crossing Territories at the University of Valencia, Learning to Relate with Ecological Awareness at the Invisible City Foundation in Salt, Girona, and a conversation with ecofeminist activist Yayo Herrero. Other events include the Museums and Gender Perspective Conferences in Barcelona and Cervera, at the University of Lleida, and the Musapalabra-Oficio de Palabreirxs: Migration International Congress of the Provincial Museum Network of Lugo, among others.