Centro del Carmen Cultura Contemporánea
CCCC or, Centro del Carmen Cultura Contemporánea, is another jewel hiding in the Old Town. Ensconced in an old convent, it is a place where the exhibits are anything but old: it is wholly devoted to contemporary art and design. This is also the place I tried seeing a while back but they wouldn’t let me in without leaving my bag behind, something I refused to do at the time. Wanting to avoid making a scene, I wisely went in with a bag they couldn’t possibly object to.
The very unassuming entrance doesn’t betray the secrets within; as soon as I passed through the ticketing area (where, these days, all you need to do is usually leave your postal code or country of origin), I was inside the first large courtyard. The age of this place is really evident here, despite various attempts at renovation. The Royal Monastery of Our Lady of Carmen was established in 1281 and it gave its name, El Carmen, to the whole neighbourhood. After its time as a cloister, it also served as a fine arts museum in the XVIII century and an art school from 1848 until 1986 when it was saved from demolition to become the cultural centre it is now. And a good thing it was saved, too, considering how easy it used to be for old buildings to be replaced in the name of progress.
The exhibition and meeting halls were plentiful, though not all were open during my visit. There was at least one conference going on while I was walking around. One of the exhibitions was a 25-year retrospective of the posters created for the annual Escole d’Estiu al País de Valencià, though, I’m sorry to say, I don’t really know what that was since everything was in Valenciano, or Catalan, really, a language similar enough to Spanish to make me think I understand it, only to be different enough for me to usually miss one or two salient words that would also make my understanding correct. I enjoyed seeing the progression from the very first one (basically some black text on a white piece of paper) to the later versions and their reflection of the design trends of the day.
In another large space, there was an exhibit titled “Moving Day” which brought on a bit of PTSD in me … I think it will be a while yet before I can look at packed boxes with any sort of calm. It was, however, quite interesting to see. There was also an innovative interactive display where you could control videos with hand movements.
Not surprisingly, I found the second courtyard to be a very joyful place, since it had some trees and shrubs, as well as an old well in the middle. The whole place seemed very serene and I wanted to stay there a while. Too bad there weren’t any benches to sit on near the well, but I did find some under the arcades and spent a while just chilling.
I read somewhere that there are often live performances staged here and I hope that once the current madness ends they will return and I’ll get to see them, because the setting is really quite fabulous. The combination of old and new is really well done: a testament to what is possible when the city cares about the past but isn’t stuck there.
