Suspicious geography

It is a collective curatorship between Plataforma Cero, MigrESS, Saberes Migrantes and Encara en Acció. An anti-racist, trans-inclusive research group made up of cultural managers, researchers, writers, poets, publishers, teachers, popular educators and multidisciplinary racialised and allied artists, who question and reconfigure dominant practices and narratives through their creations, from a transformative and interdisciplinary approach. We carry out practices of decolonisation of knowledge through dialogic, conversational and exhibition days of reflection and collective creation laboratories to value the knowledge and experiences of racialised migrants who have been historically invisibilised, as a commitment to epistemic, poetic and restorative justice.

We understand that decolonising cultural processes from the institutional implies a profound rethinking of the structures, practices and narratives that have perpetuated inequalities and we propose their interpellation from within, with the centre of our peripheries as a situated referent. Suspicious geography is more than a complex and multifaceted process; each one brings an active participation from their perspective to generate collaborative fabric, experiential art and co-construct critical consciousness as a fundamental tool of an emancipatory journey that we undertook in the second half of 2023. We inhabit spaces where local, ancestral and community knowledge intertwines with the experiences of the diaspora, its displacements and dislocations, claiming interculturality as part of the recognition of the pluri-verses rooted in our territories and insularities of the south. We generate processes to foster a cultural and intersubjective dialogue that reflects the heterogeneous reality of the socio-political ecosystems that we shape and inhabit.

La distancia entre la isla
y el archipiélago que soy
turbia
torsiona
estira y encoge en tremendo
cayendo viscosa sin aliento.
En toda esa distancia y sin querer
territorios dilatan
amplían
prolongan
el horizonte de mis nervios cubiertos de neblina
y sin amparo
usan sortilegios que no entiendo con música clásica
y correteos por patios extraños bajo lloviznita gris.
¿Estaré naciendo otra vez?
¿Es esto ser exilio?

Lira Campoamor Sánchez

Quinny Martínez Hernández - Plataforma Cero, Raizal, Afro-Colombian, from the archipelago of San Andrés, Providencia and Santa Catalina. Journalist with a diploma in culture, community media, public opinion and citizen participation. Anti-racist feminist, poet, poet-performer, creator and editor of the project for emerging writers, Plataforma Cero, the itinerant writing workshop Hologramas, the decolonial writing laboratory for racialised migrant women Mujeres del Maiz and the FILMIG (Itinerant Migrant Book Fair). Author of the poetry collections Umami, un corazón erotizado (Diversidad Literaria, 2020); Las prostitutas de mi imaginario (El ojo de Poe, 2022). Salero de Entrepierna (Editorial Ultramarina, 2023). He has participated in multiple academic spaces positioning other narratives from literature and the use of language in all expressions of language manifested through art.

Herney Mosquera Garcés - Asociación MigrESS, Colombian popular educator with studies at the University of Valle and Advertising Drawing at the School of Specialised Drawing in Cali. He has extensive experience with NGOs in the implementation, coordination and monitoring of psychosocial intervention programmes and projects. He has accompanied community processes in vulnerable sectors (mainly in the District of Aguablanca in Cali, his hometown). He is currently in charge of the training area of the Asociación de Economía Social y Solidaria MigrESS and is the rapporteur of the research group Geografía Sospechosa; co-author of the book Pedagogía de la presencia-Educar en la Calle (Corporación Juan Bosco, 2023) and author of the poetry book Manglar nocturno (Plataforma Cero, 2024).

Hilda Virginia Pérez Rodríguez, Venezuelan migrant, anti-racist, stranger, poet and decolonial cultural manager. Bilingual professional with interdisciplinary training in journalism, cooperation, politics and cultural management. She works as a technician in citizen mobilisation and education for global citizenship. Project Manager and designer of integral strategies of participation and transformative communication, as well as positioning of narratives oriented towards political participation and advocacy, with an intercultural, intersectional and gender focus. She conceptualises campaigns on gender, migration, human rights, transformative economies, culture of peace and anti-racism, social media strategies and creative storytelling, while fostering alliances and citizen participation among plural agents. She is currently a member of the Valencian performance poetry collective Las Sin Rostro, where they organise monthly poetic immersion experiences and meetings of women creators and dissidents living in the region, as well as being the technical coordinator of Plataforma Cero's research group Geografía Sospechosa.

Lira Campoamor Sánchez, poet and storyteller. Author of Una mujer que pasa y otros poemas (2004), included in several anthologies and selections. From her small studio located on the ground floor of her house in Rue Grand de Brigard, Brussels, Lira traces with her hands the reality imprinted by her drawings. Her exhibition Ojos de Lechuza is part of Plataforma Cero's group exhibition of Caribbean women Acervos Caribe and is her first solo show.
The Research Group is called Geografía Sospechosa in honour of her silent work for more than 25 years as a diasporic woman in the West. She left Cuba in 1993, lived fifteen years in Paris, then settled in Brussels. She holds an MA in Dramaturgy (1980-1985) from the Instituto Superior de Arte in Havana, Cuba, and a DEA in Hispanic and Latin American Studies (1993-1994) in Paris.

Elizabeth Montero Santa, Dominican illustrator, currently lives in Barcelona. With her work she seeks to represent black and racialised women through the experiences imprinted in their Caribbeanness. Her artistic studies began with a bachelor of arts followed by graphic design, illustration and finally fashion design, with which she discovered her passion for prints as well as for their creation through artisanal techniques such as rubber stamps carved for later use on fabrics accompanied by various embroideries. She has a great respect for the handmade, which is why she constantly combines the handmade with the digital.
In her illustrations you can appreciate the nature that has surrounded her since she was a child: the plants, the bugs in the courtyard of her mother's house (the main reference in her life). She is part of Plataforma Cero's group exhibition of Caribbean women Acervos Caribe. She has collaborated with the acclaimed book series Rebel Girls 2022, as well as with the Brennan Center For Justice with a series of portraits to commemorate Black History Month in the United States, illustrating for magazines such as TIME, YES! Magazine, Penn Gazette, Lion's Roar, Black Magazine, among other collaborations for editorial projects. She is currently in charge of the graphic interpretation of the research group Geografía Sospechosa.

María Eugenia Piola Simioli - Saberes Migrantes, born in Mendoza-Argentina, arrived in Barcelona in 1996, is a teacher and researcher at the University of Barcelona, and is part of the Saberes Migrantes Collective. She is passionate about the intersections between the personal and the political, art and science, spirit and matter, life and death, stars and subatomic particles. Convinced that the moment we are able to perceive the unity and connection of all that exists, we will no longer need to talk about diversities, differences, inclusions and exclusions.

Paula Durán Monfort - Saberes Migrantes, member of Saberes Migrantes and of the editorial collective of the Polisemias collection. She is a member of the international network Saberes compartidos and CREMIS in Montreal. Her training connects social work, anthropology and history. She teaches Epistemology at the University of Barcelona. Her interests are related to knowledge construction processes and epistemic justice, collaborative practices and critical methodologies.

Artists who collaborate with the group:
Abdiel Segarra Ríos - Puerto Rico - Curator
Carlos Abad Zaldívar - Cuba - Photographer - Curator
Ashley Toledo - Puerto Rico - Collage
Milaniza Montalvo - Puerto Rico - Painter
Aline Biz – Brasil- Colorista
Laurent Leger Adame – Reunión Island - Photographer
Ana María Gomajoa - Colombia - Production
Gisette Rosas - Venezuela - Production and media
Andrea Verbel – Garbage Guerrillera
Juliana Otálvaro - Colombia - Social Integrator
Andrea de la Hoz - Colombia - Multidisciplinary artist
Luiza Farhat - Brasil - Performer
Alejandro Rabelo García - México - WriterPublisher
Romina Astudillo - Argentina - Social integrator and trainee social worker
Ida Barbati - Italia - Visual Artist
Houari Bouchenak - Algeria - Photographer
Nora Daoud - France - Photographer and cultural manager
Xavier de Luca - Spain - Cultural manager
Guerthy Gutiérrez - Colombia - Visual Artist  and graphic designer
Danilo Marinho - Brasil - Social communicator, musician and sound designer
Boris Mercado - Perú - Photographer
Camila Opazo Sepúlveda - Chile - Archaeologist
Alejandra Rocabado - Bolivia - Photographer
Soukaïna Sentissi - Morocco - Film, audiovisual and cultural projects
Rocío Sueiro  - Argentina - Equality promoter and social worker in training
Catalina Valdés - Chile - Trainee social worker

Plataforma Cero  is an anti-racist, cultural, academic and trans-inclusive publishing project. A cultural and research management agency that through various strategies validates the processes of self-management and creation of racialised migrants to bring literary, collective and individual projects to fruition. We believe in the processes that are built by weaving together networks that place the work of ‘otherness’ at the centre of the construction of knowledge, validating ancestral knowledge and practices.
The editorial line is headed by Quinny Martinez Hernández, Alejandro Rabelo García and Ada Okenve Obiang.

MigrESS is an association that works to promote the active participation of migrants in the social and solidarity economy in Barcelona. Through various actions, such as training, advice and networking, it seeks to empower migrant entrepreneurs, make their initiatives visible and strengthen the local economic fabric. In addition, MigrESS works to promote social inclusion, interculturality and social transformation, contributing to building a fairer and more equitable society where everyone has the same opportunities. Based on the principles of the Social and Solidarity Economy, sustainability and economic democracy, MigrESS collaborates with various organisations and entities to raise awareness in society about the importance of the SSE and the fundamental role played by migrants.

Saberes Migrantes  is an itinerant meeting space that, in different places, proposes to weave collaborative processes of thinking, listening and dialogue to vindicate epistemic justice and to question from collective creation and resistance.
Together with Jiser, it promotes Polisemias, a publishing collection that proposes to explore other ways of constructing knowledge, from feel-think and critical action, to connect knowledge and practices, interweave memories and create a constellation of plural stories with their own voice. A choral proposal that links the visual arts with poetry and music, uses different creative formats and is written in different languages to build, from the individual and the collective, this joint publication. In 2023 we published 0# Polisemias del silencio and this year we started the process for the elaboration of 1# Polisemias para otros tiempos. The editorial collective is made up of Ida Barbati, Houari Bouchenak, Xavier de Luca, Paula Durán Monfort, Guerthy Gutiérrez, Boris Mercado, Danilo Marinho, Camila Opazo Sepúlveda and Alejandra Rocabado.

Encara en Acció is a space for LGTBIQ+ empowerment with a comprehensive approach. An association that goes beyond the defence of LGTBIQ+ rights. Through its actions, it seeks to empower LGTBIQ+ people in different areas of life, creating a safe and supportive space where sexual and gender diversity, ecological awareness and the fight for the rights of migrants intersect.