Idem 2026. A gathering of the performing arts and communities
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Ídem is celebrating its 14th edition, curated by Rolf Abderhalden, under the theme ‘Ecotopias’. With a programme of international standing, the festival prompts us to reflect on the challenges of living in a new era marked by the impact of humanity’s footprint on the planet. A meeting place to explore, share and foster new forms of creative coexistence.
From 22 to 27 September, La Casa Encendida presents ‘Ídem 2026: A Gathering of the Living Arts and Communities’, curated by Rolf Abderhalden under the theme ‘Ecotopias’.
Through a variety of projects by national and international artists, Ídem 2026 explores a broad and diverse conception of the living, inviting us to listen to other sensibilities, forms of knowledge and ways in which human and non-human communities relate to one another. Performances, participatory actions, dance, film, poetry and collaborative creative processes make up a programme that raises fundamental questions about the present and opens up new horizons for imagining possible futures.
Over six days, the festival will bring together some of the most distinctive voices on the contemporary art scene, such as Mike Parr, Cecilia Vicuña, Lucrecia Martel, Olga de Soto, Iara Solano, Rodrigo García, Yinka and Niño de Elche, alongside the twelve young creators from the Experimenta/Madrid laboratory selected through an open call.
Faced with the urgent need to ask ourselves what it means to live in ‘a new geological epoch’ in which ‘we humans have become a geophysical force on a planetary scale’, the English philosopher Timothy Morton argues that the experience of art constitutes ‘a model for the kind of coexistence that ecological ethics and politics aspire to establish between humans and non-humans’.
What kinds of sensitive production practices, both within and outside the field we call art, can we imagine today to counteract policies that undermine the existence of ‘other’ communities, whether or not they form part of the human community?
What happens when we encounter worlds and ways of life that are unfamiliar to us, that unsettle and bewilder us, and we decide to create alongside these other forces, incorporating into our practice bodies and modes of producing subjectivity that are alien to our own and to those of the community—artistic or otherwise—to which we belong?
What forms of work can we create, and what relationships can we imagine with these new communities? What opportunities and what risks arise from these unlikely encounters?
What effects does the presence of the living—the alien and the strange—have on creation itself and on its modes of production and reception?
Centred on this open-ended notion of the living and the questions raised by creation in non-artistic spheres involving living beings belonging to ‘other communities’—whether human or non-human—we propose to convene this ‘Encounter of Living Arts and Communities’.
Rolf Abderhalden Cortés
See the full programme on the Spanish version of the website
