Credits photo: Roberto Ruiz
Artist and researcher Gemma París, a member of CRiEDO, presents the project Als marges, which can be visited from 21 February to 24 May 2026 at Espai Transversal, within the framework of the Eixart Programme. Art and health promoted by the Department of Culture and the Department of Health of the Government of Catalonia.
The project is carried out in collaboration between the CAP Bordeta-Magraners and the Centre d’Art La Panera in Lleida. A project that highlights forgotten spaces and popular knowledge.
Als marges stems from the desire to focus on what often remains invisible: the plants that grow freely in peripheral spaces, the territories considered secondary, and the traditional knowledge that has maintained a sensitive connection with nature. París proposes, together with women from the Bordeta-Magraners neighbourhood and health professionals, a shared look at the territory and the slow pace required for attentive observation.
Halfway between the CAP and La Panera, the group has created a fertile meeting ground for the exchange of knowledge: from homemade remedies and the gastronomic uses of undervalued plants to drawing and sewing processes as forms of thought and creation. In this exchange, París has shared drawing strategies while learning from the participants the art of “drawing with thread and needle”.
The project thus becomes a community action of resilience, combating loneliness through collective creation and giving visibility to people and practices that often remain outside the spotlight of the contemporary city.
París’ artistic career has been characterised by constant research on aesthetic resilience, nature, interspecies relations and drawing as a tool for thinking. She understands pictorial space as a residual and potential-filled place, in line with the “terrain vague” conceptualised by Solà-Morales and Careri.
Her work has been exhibited in major art institutions such as the Can Framis Museum – Fundació Vila Casas, the Design Museum (DHUB), the Centre d’Art La Panera, the Museum of Modern Art of Tarragona, the Contemporary Art Centre of Málaga, the Círculo de Bellas Artes in Madrid, and the Forest of Imagination festival in the United Kingdom, among many others.
She has been awarded several artistic research grants from the Fundació Vila Casas – Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Arts Santa Mònica, La Escocesa – CREAF – UAB, the Government of Catalonia, the Ministry of Culture, the Institut Ramon Llull and other institutions.
The Eixart Programme is a joint initiative of the Departments of Culture and Health to develop artistic research, mediation and production projects in primary care centres throughout Catalonia. Based on participatory processes, it involves users, families and CAP professionals, alongside artists and contemporary art centres in the territory.
This year, four projects are being developed in collaboration with the Centre d’Art La Panera (Lleida), Lo Pati (Terres de l’Ebre), M|A|C Mataró Art Contemporani and ACVIC Centre d’Arts Contemporànies. Gemma París has been selected to develop Als marges in relation to the theme of loneliness, proposed by CAP Bordeta-Magraners, and with the support of the Centre d’Art La Panera.
Further information here.
