Archivo de la delicadeza

This is one of this year’s most exciting new additions to the Festival de Otoño: a new partnership with Museo Nacional de Artes Decorativas (MNAD). The MNAD has a rich and extensive collection available, especially the collections comprising metalwork and silverware, ceramics, furniture, ivories, fabrics, contemporary design, and photography. There is more than 100 years of history locked in the building and it boasts a collection of over 80,000 pieces, some of which dates back seven centuries. 80,000 objects for the El Solar Object Detective Agency. It must be like finding paradise on Earth. El Solar is made of Oligor and Microscopía, Jomi Oligor and Shaday Larios, plus Xavier Bobés. The three share a passion for unlocking the secrets stored in these everyday objects and discovering the stories that have passed through the spaces, although it is only Jomi and Shaday this time (Bobés is not taking part this time round). They are the ones in charge of recording the tales trapped in the walls of the mansion at 12 Montalbán Street, built in 1878 by order of the Duchess of Santoña.

Whilst it is a glaring oxymoron, Oligor and Larios’s story is full of complex simplicity. Above all there is a delicate and emotive fragility intertwined into the fabric of the objects, all with a history pending only on a fine thread that links them to the past. They trace with their fingertips the accumulated time stored in the objects and try to seek yesterday’s story from the present to carry into the future. They are translators of material silences. They are listening to the intimate secrets that remain imprinted in what was once a simple everyday item or a small entelechy. At MNAD they encounter thousands of objects that stare back at them. There are confessions of a past life surrendered through their surviving bodies. They explain: “In the Archivo de la delicadeza, we make note of the subtleness in their voices and create scenes of closeness through their meaning.”

This artistic project was born out of collaborating with MNAD’s real object detectives, who are also searching for the stories sewn into each object’s being. You will be able to expect something quite extraordinary from this event: trackers and bloodhounds together with custodians and custodians accompanying immense collections of material culture. This time, the investigation's findings will be brought to life on the stage. A scene that bridges fantasy and life, the surreal and truth, will be performed by Oligor and Microscopía. The seemingly insignificant reveals itself to be the bearer of important information, twisting a simple object’s capacity to embody its legacies. Its silence and stillness are only temporary. They are waiting for someone to peel back the layers of time to reveal their truths.

The small revelations start to sew together a tapestry made of squares from the past and the present, which help to build new connections between people, spaces, and memories. Shaday Larios explains: “Object theatre uses synergy created through different memories. There are the memories stored in our bodies, which make up the fabric of society. There are politics of memory festering in the crevices that ignore, deny, or silence an individual’s voice and run through the threads of time. They are hard to get hold of and cross us to give density to today.” It is a ritual revealing untold stories and gives dignity to things we may often disregard. It reveals how much life is stored in places we do not consider. Make yourself comfortable and listen closely to what the object detectives discover. They are dusting away at history’s riverbed and putting on display all the secrets guarded in the Museo Nacional de Artes Decorativas.