Swab Barcelona presents its 2024 edition with a programme that, in addition to including its regular sections, stands out for the incorporation of curated projects that address, from a critical and global perspective, diverse formal and territorial themes. These projects have been developed together with curators specialising in the themes presented, which has allowed for a more in-depth and contextualised approach to the discourses that structure the edition. This year, Swab reinforced its focus on East Asia, a territory already explored in the previous edition, based on the relationship with the environment and identity, cultural tradition and the different ways of understanding progress.

The programmes developed were the Tokyo-Seoul Focus and the Perhutana project, two initiatives that address identity conflicts in regions where accelerated development has generated fractures in collective memory and community dynamics. Through these projects, the fair encourages a critical reflection on memory and the redefinition of identity in societies marked by the contradiction between the cultural base and the neoliberal development of their political and economic systems.

Around this approach, parallel activities have been generated that enrich the public’s experience. Among them, Swab Radio, a space for recording and broadcasting conversations between the participants of the edition, where the new landscapes of contemporary art have been debated. Likewise, the fair maintains its commitment to art education through its children’s program, which this year joins the central theme with an immersion in Japanese culture. Through creative experimentation and collaborative work, the little ones have participated in the creation of a collective mural inspired by the Sakura, symbol of ephemeral beauty and renewal.

With this program, Swab Barcelona 2024 reaffirms its vocation as a platform for the exploration and dissemination of emerging art, promoting the encounter between creators, curators and visitors, and consolidating its role as a point of reference in the local and global art circuit.