How do independent art spaces in Barcelona and Taipei differ from each other? What is their relationship with the institutions? What difficulties do they face? This year SWAB’s Solo Show program, dedicated to give visibility to local independent spaces in Barcelona, expands and establishes a dialogue with the city of Taipei. From GRAF we have taken the opportunity to see what points they have in common and how different (or not) is to manage an independent space on the other side of the world.
1. SUAVEART (Taipei) + Raccoon Projects (Barcelona)
SUAVEART: “The main challenges of a small team operation include maintaining financial sustainability, such as selling artwork, training administrative staff, balancing artistic freedom with external pressures, and ensuring sustainable support. In addition, organizing consistent programming while managing limited resources can be demanding.”
Raccoon Projects: “Disadvantages, as a non-profit project, include struggling with funding and wanting to build a well-defined project with very few resources. Grants are often structured in such a way that they either arrive late or, as a young initial project, provide very little money. There are also grants designed for investing large amounts of money, which is quite unsustainable for a project like this”.
2. Halfhouse (Barcelona) + EQUAL (Taipei).
Halfhouse: “These types of projects operate through the individual passion of the people involved in them; improvement would come from having better conditions, not only economic but also in terms of valuing these types of spaces, recognizing and promoting them.”
EQUAL: “Like we all know how art changes the way we see it in different periods of time, so tracing back history and finding the roots of what caused who we are, what we are doing is important. Be dare to face who we were, making new statements, a new idea of the contemporary art field can be found by searching history, just like we searching ourselves.”
3. ss space space (Taipei) + FASE (Barcelona).
ss space space: “What matters most is learning from one another. We believe that flexibility and continuous mutual learning are crucial to successful collaboration. Through open dialogue and the exchange of ideas, not only is inspiration fostered, but this also captures the very essence of learning in art.”
FASE: “Any dialogue or collaboration requires public and private funding to facilitate the management of the cultural and artistic connection. In terms of management, artistic residencies or traveling exhibitions are systems that facilitate the cultural link.”
4. Espai 19 (Barcelona) + Shishishi (Taipei).
Espai19: “One of the main difficulties is the funding of projects and the approach to the market, whether from institutional funds or collectors. The advantages include creating ties between the gallery, the artists, and the cultural world.”
Shishishi: “One of the challenges is forgetting traditional roles as artists and resisting established routines, so we can respond to the evolving demands of the art world. One advantage is the deep connections we form—both collaborative and personal—allowing us to build meaningful relationships and friendships.”
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APROPOS refers to content created intentionally about something happening in our artistic context. On this occasion, we are engaging in dialogue between four GRAF spaces and four galleries from Taipei as part of the Solo Show program at the Swab Fair.
