Art and Culture in Can Monroig

In the summer of 2007 we invited a friend, Marie-Noelle Barré, theatre director and director of JMC Cultural Center in Paris, to visit Can Monroig. The house was still under restoration work but the traces of the open spaces, the different levels, the heights, etc. Our friend, impressed by the space, asked us “Have you thought about making this place known, opening it to the public, performing theatre, dance, music?” We, who until then had only talked about the possibility of opening our studio here, answered no, that this was not possible, that we were not in Paris, that this was Inca, that people here were not very interested in art or culture. In short, it would be a waste of time.

Then our friend told us something that we have always kept in mind: “You have to believe the need.”

From time to time, Roberto and I remember this phrase, and although we do not always remember it, I think it has left a deep mark on us. We must create in people the need to see art, we must create the need to live surrounded by beauty, we must create the need to live different moments in special spaces. In 2006, while Can Monroig was still undergoing restoration work, we improvised a photography session inside the house with sculptures of Joan Llompart and tapestries of Marie-Noëlle Ginard.Already in 2010 the theatre company The Harlequin of Paris represented “Bernarda Alba”; followed by exhibitions of Hector Solari and Carlos Fernandez; collaborations with the Addaya gallery (Pablo Fernandez Pujol and Gisela Rafols); four consecutive years participating in Incart with the collaboration of the artist, among others Miquel Mesquida in 2010, interventions by street painters in 2011; the performance ““Economic tsunami in progress” of Herbert Hundrich in 2012; Interventions in empty shop windows in the center of Inca in 2013, or the joint installation of Robert López Hinton and Marie-Noëlle Ginard “L'argent ce qoi?”

In these last three years we have hosted dance, theatre and performance with dancers such as Catalina Carrasco, Ingrid Medina and Carlos Miró. Presentations of books, reading of poetry or construction days on land have been other proposals that we have scheduled. Music has had a special role through “the sessions at the Can Monroig cistern”, videos recorded informally inside the tankMusicians such as Miquel Serra, Jan Gerdes and Sivina Avila, Steven Munar, Alberto Vizcaino, Shella Gathright, Paul Collins, Adela Ferrer, L'Equilibriste, Donallop, Essaie Pas, among others, have played in our “underground"In an intimate, private and truly privileged atmosphere, surrounded by an ever-attentive audience, a real pleasure for our sensibility. Our intention is to continue offering art and culture in small doses, always looking for artists from the islands, or outside them if possible, who contribute originality, talent and creativity, supporting them to the maximum within our possibilities."

Can Monroig, Inca, Mallorca, February 2012