About
LABA BCN brings together artists from all backgrounds and disciplines to study classical Jewish
texts, experiment, and explore the futures of Jewish art and culture.
LABA BCN offers an annual creative fellowship program for up to 10 scholarship artists. We study
from Judaism’s rich literary and intellectual traditions, in a free and creative setting so that these
fertile ideas and stories spark new thoughts and creative work.
The outputs from our laboratory
push the boundaries of what Jewish culture can be and what Jewish texts can teach.
Over the past year, the 2024 LABA Barcelona fellows have studied ancient Jewish texts on the subject of “Night” in LABA’s open-minded and free-spirited house of study.
They encountered old stories and ideas which fertilized new art and culture. Watch this video to meet our fellows and get a taste of our 2024 LABA Live event!
Project Partners:
Theme
THE 2025 THEME FOR LABA IS CHANGE.
Our relationship with change reaches in two, oppositional directions.
We fear change, loathe change, long to keep things as they are or reverse things to how they used to be. We desire to return to mythical homelands, to gardens, our childhoods, to the people and communities and places we knew before change happened. And yet, what is our lives if not constant change, or the pursuit of constant change? The, to borrow from our Buddhist friends, permanence of impermanence? Changes in our moods, changes in our bodies, changes in our levels of enlightenment, sometimes premeditated, sometimes sought out through the embrace of new experiences. We subject ourselves to unpredictability with the hope that we will be changed, if only for this moment, if only forever.
As culture-makers, we simultaneously pursue change of words, materials, musical notes, ideas, sensibilities, and warn others of easy, shallow change. Change, real change, is never so simple. In Jewish culture, we also toggle between a resistance to change and embrace of constant flux – laws, ideas, customs, feelings are simultaneously fixed and malleable, altered through careful deliberations as well as dreams and intuitions. Medieval scholar Maimonides believed the Torah was immutable. Meanwhile, Spanish Jewish mystics believed that truth was mutable, and every era demands a new approach to the Torah.
This year at LABA we will dive into the paradoxes of change in our collective souls and individual creative practices. Most importantly, we’ll have a great time talking, eating, drinking, learning, and laughing in the lush, fertile, free-flowing, romantic, super-serious, and endlessly playful environment of LABA: A Laboratory for Jewish Culture.
We invite you to look within, or without, be still, or be active, and interrogate change in your minds and your work.
Fellows
News
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LABA Barcelona open call 2025
Application for LABA 2025 fellowship program is now closed. Application dates: October 21st- December 5th, 2024. LABA brings together artists from all backgrounds and disciplines to study classical Jewish texts, experiment, and explore the futures of Jewish art and culture. LABA is a non-religious house of study whose goal is to function as an
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LabaLive Barcelona! November 23-24.2024!
Saturday 23/11/24 17:00-23:00 | Sunday 24/11/24 18:00-23:00 Over the past year, the 2024 LABA Barcelona fellows have studied ancient Jewish texts on the theme of “NIGHT” in LABA’s non-theological, non-ideological, open-minded and free-spirited house of study. They encountered stories and ideas which fertilized new art and culture. Join us for an experience of these creative
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Remembrance Ceremony: Honouring our Ancestors – Montjuïc old Cemetery, Barcelona.
LABA BCN Fellow, Kevin Buckland, uses art, ceremony and study to raise awareness and new imaginaries around the forgotten medieval jewish cemetery on Montjuïc in Barcelona. On September 29th he will work with Yad Miriam to convene an annual ceremony and performance of remembrance to explore ideas of belonging-in-diaspora, tensions between political and traditional law,
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LABA BCN Tikkun Shavuot 2024
Thanks to all LABA BCN fellows and all Tikkun Shavuot NIGHT participants, for a beautiful, memorable experience!
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LABA Barcelona open call 2024
Application for LABA 2024 fellowship program is now closed. Application dates: January 22nd- February 19th LABA: A Laboratory for Jewish Art and Culture LABA brings together artists from all backgrounds and disciplines to study classical Jewish texts, experiment, and explore the futures of Jewish art and culture. LABA is a non-religious house of study
Read more
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Launching event of LABA Barcelona at Casa Adret, June 10th, 2023
LABAbel – Art & Study event June 10th, 2023, 19–22 hrs Casa Adret – Calle Salomo ben Adret 6, Barcelona. We are pleased to invite you to the launching event of Laba Barcelona, at Casa Adret LABA brings together artists from all backgrounds and disciplines, to study classical Jewish texts, to experiment and to explore
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Events
LABA Barcelona Live event 2024!
Over the past year, the 2024 LABA Barcelona fellows have studied ancient Jewish texts on the subject of “Night” in LABA’s open-minded and free-spirited house of study.
They encountered old stories and ideas which fertilized new art and culture. Watch this video to meet our fellows and get a taste of our 2024 LABA Live event!
FELLOWS
Eyal Lally Bitton
Laba Process/Project
Eyal Lally Bitton is an audio-visual artist who explores the techno-poetics of perceptual phenomena.
He uses video, amplified sounds and strobing lights to deconstruct cinema and music, creating uncanny, powerful and transformative experiences.
https://eyal-lally-bitton.com/
Fernando Cardona Pons
Laba Process/Project
Fernando Cardona Pons, born in Menorca, is a multidisciplinary artist known as Ego Sum Lux Mundi. A tattoo artist, illustrator, and visual creator, his work explores themes of mythology, ancient history, and other cultural narratives, blending classical influences with contemporary aesthetics to craft a unique artistic universe.
Gaston Lisak
Laba Process/Project
Gastón Lisak, a Barcelona-based conceptual artist and professor, creates striking ready-made sculptures blending neoclassical forms with neon vinyls. Influenced by Arte Povera and Pistoletto, he explores Material Anthropology and co-founded Random Happiness, promoting joy as a tool for change. Currently, he’s completing a PhD at the University of Lisbon on Art Thinking and anachronistic objects.
Laura Sofia Hernandez Gil
Laba Process/Project
Laura Sofia, a Catalan multidisciplinary artist, dance theater performer, and Integrative Psychologist, recently returned to Barcelona after seven years in Israel. Her work blends performance, video art, and photography, using art as a tool for activism to inspire authenticity, freedom, and beauty through her project Authentic BEauty Journey, ritual performances, and workshops.
Maya Geller
Laba Process/Project
Maya Geller is a storyteller and visual artist driven by curiosity and a deep connection to the people and places she encounters. Her work explores the textures of human experience, blending observation and imagination to uncover the extraordinary behind the scenes of everyday moments and the labor that sustains our daily lives.
Michael Gadish
Laba Process/Project
Michael Gadish explores orality, the use of narrative games, and long-duration performances to examine our relationship with time and identity. He combines studies on cultural identity, Hebrew philology, and Sanskrit to challenge patterns of selfhood and affiliation.
Monika Buzali Kalach
Laba Process/Project
Monica Buzali is an art therapist, artist, and cook from Mexico, deeply rooted in her Mexican Syrian-Jewish heritage. Her work focuses on helping people find meaning in their identity, exploring their heritage and origins through art and food. By delving into what has shaped us, she creates spaces for self-discovery, expression, and a deeper understanding of who we are and what we are made of.
https://www.instagram.com/monicabuzali_arteterapia/
https://www.instagram.com/
monicabuzalikalach/
Natalia Rottenberg Faust
Laba Process/Project
Natalia Faust (Natirott) is an actress, creative artist, and screenwriter originally from Argentina. Over the past twenty-two years, she lived and developed a significant part of her career in Tel Aviv (Israel). She has participated in various theater productions, films, and television series. She is currently based in Barcelona.
Ofer Ronen
Laba Process/Project
Ofer Ronen, born in Israel, began his musical journey at 13, inspired by flamenco guitar. After earning a BA in musicology and philosophy, he moved to Seville in 2010 to study flamenco professionally. Now based in Barcelona with an MA in flamenco performance, he performs internationally, collaborating with artists and projects across 15 countries and four continents.