The logical, verbal, and rational facets were left to the “traditional” subjects. With Planeta Cobalto, we brought everything that defied names and definitions —what wanted to remain in the realm of the “yet to…”— and encouraged play, pleasure, and disorientation. We launched Planeta Cobalto during a time of quarantine, choosing as a framework the beginning of a science-fiction narrative based on a fantastical scenario, where the students became co-creators of this imagined world.
These processes led us to the collective construction of futuristic landscapes. Through weekly missions, students engaged in conversations about how they envisioned Planeta Cobalto: its inhabitants, gatherings, celebrations, language, and body —as the class had become part of La Resistencia de Luzazul. We used diverse communication tools to reach our teenagers: from handwritten letters to Zoom calls, collages, or haikus in a bottle, aiming to pull the body away from the screen and activate critical thinking through play.
Lenguas Vivas, transformed into Planeta Cobalto, sought to learn with them from that planetary moment and challenge history —to become a form of resistance from which to reclaim other ways of learning, of being together, of inventing and sharing imaginaries; to shift duty into pleasure, to look at each other as equals, and to place lived experience on equal footing with data collection. We searched for spaces that lay between intimacy and an online session —works that could unfold over different timelines and bring the joy of sharing ourselves during those isolated times.
With 1st and 2nd year secondary students (ESO) from Institut Montjuïc.
The Graner 2019–2020 educational program (Contact Zones) was part of the Caixa d’Eines initiative, promoted by Pla de Barris de Barcelona, which aimed to integrate artistic practices into the school curriculum in order to reduce inequalities among the city’s neighborhoods.