Sometimes, when you are in places of responsibility, you need other women to accompany you along the way. Judit Carrera is interested in the genealogical thought – “I was going to say tentacular, because it is a word that Donna Haraway uses a lot” – to which Hannah Arendt refers: you come into the world, and the world is not new. You arrive in an already existing world, you insert yourself into a series of networks that already existed, and everything is relational: “It is a very characteristic feature of feminism, understanding that we are not alone.”
In his office at the Center de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona (CCCB), piled up on the work table, and on the shelves, there is a mixture of books without order
There are those that she brings from home, the CCCB publications and those shared with European museums, exhibition catalogues, copies sent by publishers and those necessary for documentation: “They are the inspiration for future projects, a way to have a panoramic vision ”.
When he entered in 2018, he put in plants, rugs, another table for meetings, and a painting from a trip he took to India just before taking over the direction of the center, which just celebrated its thirtieth anniversary.
There are also maps; loves. Carrera has a very geographical mind and is interested in urban planning, the intersection between philosophy and architecture, Richard Sennett, Solà-Morales, and understanding space. He did the thesis on the public sphere based on Habermas and Arendt.
He worked for two years at UNESCO in Paris. She has been quite itinerant. He lives on rent, and in Barcelona he has moved five times, meaning he has had to get rid of books several times. She doesn’t have a hard time, he is liberating, but those closest to her always accompany her, for example in Machiavelli’s The Prince or The Rights of Others, by Seyla Benhabib.
Reading for pleasure coincides with reading for work. You can read in the office, which is filled with beautiful light in the afternoon, and also at home, always on paper.
Carry books in your bag. He reads three or four in parallel and spends less time on them than he would like, but he tries to discipline himself. At night he leaves his cell phone outside the bedroom to avoid answering emails. On weekends she has a little more time, but also a young son, “which is a full life, in the full sense of the word.” Jan is six years old and has discovered the quantity and quality of children’s and youth literature, which fascinates her, “there are extraordinary titles.”
He worries that handwriting is being lost, that continuity between stroke, reading and memory.
Carrera underlines the books in pencil, takes notes, makes diagrams. He is very rational, and his curiosity works like a motor. He is interested in everything: discovering new things, meeting new people, traveling. She gets excited and non-fiction helps her set milestones. He gives you a theoretical framework and places events in a context that allows you to read the world. He has a very Africanist streak. Mia Couto, J.M. Coetzee or William Kentridge reach her heart, they take her to places that the Western imagination cannot reach, “they are radical experiences of life and death that open up unsuspected paths for you.” There were also many books in her house. And newspapers; Her father bought seven different ones every day.
Born in the mid-70s, she belongs to the first generation to be educated in Catalan. She did it at the Santa Anna school in Eixample, where she was instilled with a love for Catalan, French (European humanism) and Spanish literature; Of the latter, she was marked by Professor María Jesús Marqués.
At 13 or 14 years old, he discovered Mercè Rodoreda, Machado, Unamuno, the Generation of ’98, Montserrat Roig, Josep Pla. He conceives multilingualism as a principle and a value: “It is understanding that, the more languages ??you know, the more you know; The strange thing is monolingualism.”
Literature led her to fall in love with philosophy and become interested in political science. She was from the first class at the UAB, in 1992. In her career, women were hardly read. She has corrected this in recent years with authors such as Jeanette Winterson, Fina Birulés, Marta Sagarra, Fatima Bhutto and Mary Beard. “They accompany me and help me get situated.”
