Leire Vergara and Eduardo Hodgson Host the Workshop ‘Devices of Touch. Tenerife: Radiations on the Skin’ at TEA Museum
This new activity from the ‘La Plaza’ programme, which is free of charge, will take place next Saturday (20th), from 11:00 to 19:00 hours
Leire Vergara and Eduardo Hodgson will be conducting the workshop Devices of Touch. Tenerife: Radiations on the Skin at the TEA Tenerife Espacio de las Artes this coming Saturday (20th). Participants will begin with a collection of concepts related to various text fragments, navigate an itinerary, and temporarily inhabit spaces where they will read and develop ideas based on the artistic and curatorial practices of both authors. This new initiative from La Plaza. Workshop of Shared Practices, curated by Alejandro Castañeda, is free and is scheduled from 11:00 to 19:00 hours. Interested individuals wishing to attend this workshop, which has limited capacity, must register in advance by sending an email to [email protected], including their full name, ID/NIE/other identification, and phone number.
About the Reading Group
The reading group Devices of Touch is an initiative by curator and researcher Leire Vergara, established in 2015 in collaboration with Trankat Résidence d’artistes in the Medina of Tetuán (Morocco). Organised through several sessions over six months, the reading group focused on developing the visual and theoretical vocabulary of Vergara’s doctoral research on curation from the Curatorial/Knowledge programme at Goldsmiths, University of London. Through a simple dynamic where a concept was introduced via the reading of a text, the contribution of a guest artist, and presence in a location, each session invoked a dialectical crossing of text and image, knowledge and artistic practice.
Recent Publication
The book Near the Sovereignty Squares, written by Leire Vergara and published by Letra Caniche (2023), captures the experiences of the reading group in Tetuán. From this, a cartography is drawn from contemporary art concerning territorial exceptionalism marked by sovereignty squares—those small, inaccessible, uninhabited enclaves that remain militarily monitored, located off the northern coast of Morocco but under Spanish jurisdiction. Based on five key concepts—device, touch, friendship, display, and sovereignty—and using curatorial practice as a lens, the author presents a critical perspective on these spaces of denial, examining both the observed object and the tool of observation as if through a hall of mirrors. Taking this experience as a starting point, a new reading session is now emerging in collaboration with the La Plaza programme in dialogue with artist Eduardo Hodgson.
About the Artists
Leire Vergara holds a PhD in Visual Cultures from Goldsmiths, University of London. She is a curator, writer, educator, and member of Bulegoa z/b (Bilbao). She has curated numerous cycles and exhibitions such as María Cueto. Weaving the Ephemeral: Repetition, Geometry, Circularity (Sala Kubo Kutxa Fundazioa, Donostia-San Sebastián, 2025); Artelekun Zehar 1987-2002. An Exhibition on Arteleku through the Archive (Artium, Vitoria-Gasteiz, 2025, with Sergio Rubira and Mikel Onandia); and None of Us, with Each Other: Processes of Institutionalisation of Artistic Education in the Basque Country, 1978-1991 (with Sergio Rubira and Mikel Onandia) (Artium, Vitoria-Gasteiz, 2024).
She has published her writings with renowned publishers such as Mousse Publishing, Bloomsbury, MIT Press/Sternberg Press, Cultural Dynamics (Duke University), and Letra Caniche. In 2020-2021, she received the MAEC-AECID scholarship at the Spanish Academy in Rome. Since 2016, she has been teaching the Curating Positions course (currently with Marwa Arsanios and Leon Filter) in the Master of Art at the Dutch Art Institute, ArtEZ University of the Arts Arnhem.
Eduardo Hodgson (Tenerife, 2001) graduated in Fine Arts from the University of La Laguna. He completed the Master’s programme Artistic Practices and Cultural Studies: Body, Emotions, and Territory at Centro Huarte, in collaboration with the University of the Basque Country and the Public University of Navarra, as well as a Master’s in Philosophy Research at the University of La Laguna. His artistic practice explores how images generate meaning, how we relate to them, and how they produce subjectivity. His interests focus on transformations linked to presence and corporeal experience, which he addresses through abstract hints to deconstruct specific visual, environmental, and political constructions of territory, as well as their effects on the body.
His practice is articulated through material processes and the creation of genealogies that, in their intertwining, allow for speculation and generate forms of attention and estrangement towards them. His work has been showcased in venues such as the Museum of Fine Arts of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, La Limonera, El Tanque, and the Contemporary Art Centre SAC (Tenerife), the Barceló Foundation (Palma de Mallorca), the Nahim Isaías Museum (Ecuador), Casa D’Alva Gallery (Brazil), the Historical Museum of Placilla (Chile), and ArtNueve Gallery (Murcia). Recent projects include A Cloud Hat. On the Mountainside (2025, curated by Leire Vergara and Francesc Ruiz, Centre for Contemporary Art Huarte) and Airborne Illness (2024, curated by Óscar Morales, Ethall Gallery).
