Cerca de las plazas de soberanía

138 x 210 mm
256 pages (includes 16 pages of photographs)
Design: Setanta

In a time of expanded borders, what role do the places known as the plazas de soberanía—Perejil, Alhucemas, Chafarinas, and Vélez de la Gomera—play? Inaccessible and uninhabited, these small enclaves are militarily monitored, located off the northern coast of Morocco but under Spanish control. They represent a territorial exception that allows Europe to intervene in migration flows. Their undefined and ambiguous legal status harks back to a colonial model that continues to operate effectively today.

Leire Vergara proposes a counter-cartography of these territories from the perspective of contemporary art. Using five key concepts—device, touch, friendship, display, and sovereignty—and employing curatorial practice as a lens, the author offers a critical examination of these spaces of denial, simultaneously exploring, as if through a mirror, both the observed object and the tool of observation.

Leire Vergara (Bilbao, 1973) holds a PhD from Goldsmiths' College, University of London. She is a curator, writer, teacher, and member of the art and knowledge office Bulegoa z/b (Bilbao). Her curatorial work is nourished by various collaborative and conversational methods, seeking organically to implement new methodologies and forms of exhibition articulation. Her writing bridges theory and practice. Among the exhibitions and programs she has curated are: In qualche luogo lontano: Roma (Spanish Academy in Rome, 2021); La pantalla negra o blanca: el poder de ver imágenes juntos (Ca2M, 2016); and Dispositivos del tocar: Imaginación curatorial en los tiempos de las fronteras expandidas (Trankat, Tétouan, 2015). Between 2005 and 2009, she was chief curator at Sala Rekalde and previously co-directed, with Peio Aguirre, DAE-Donostiako Arte Ekinbideak, a project associated with Arteleku. She currently teaches at the Dutch Art Institute, University of the Arts (Arnhem). During a residency at the Spanish Academy in Rome, she completed the work on this book.