‘Museums Uniting a Divided World’ is the slogan proposed by the ICOM (International Council of Museums) to celebrate International Museum Day on 18 May 2026. With this title, the ICOM aims to highlight the potential role of museums in bridging cultural, social and geopolitical divides, by fostering dialogue, understanding, inclusion and peace within and between communities around the world.
Educational concerts featuring contemporary music, an open session on a course covering the history of photography, visits to current exhibitions and areas of the museum that are normally inaccessible, family workshops and the opening of a new exhibition make up a week-long CGAC programme. All activities are free.
EDUCATIONAL CONCERTS WITHOUT A SCORE
MONDAY, 18 MAY
VENUE: CGAC Auditorium
TIMETABLE: 10.30-11.30 a.m. (first session) / 12.00-1.00 p.m. (second session)
DURATION: 1 hour
Free activity, subject to prior registration
When we come across a work of art—be it a painting, a sculpture, music or dance—a number of questions may arise: What does this mean? What are the artists trying to tell us? Do I understand this piece? Is this work good or bad? Is this art? When it comes to contemporary art, these and other questions arise even more frequently. But what if the problem is in the questions?
In this concert, we suggest taking the opposite approach: we’ll show how artists work from the very beginning of a piece, focusing not on the final result, but on the initial impulse behind the work, and the process itself. It will be a multidisciplinary concert, with some ensemble members coming from non-musical backgrounds. Treating the body as yet another instrument, we’ve invited four musicians and two dancers to join this ensemble.
Through Soundpainting, a state-of-the-art technique for live composition, the director of the ensemble communicates with the group using a specific sign language that allows them to improvise sounds and movements, giving rise to a constantly transforming action on stage. The audience, therefore, takes an active part in the artistic experience.
TARGET GROUPS: School groups from the first and second cycles of primary education
PLACES: 250 per session
REGISTRATION: If you wish to register or request further information, please send an email to cgac.educacion@xunta.gal containing the following details: name of the school, number of participants, year or age, telephone number, email address and the name of the person responsible for the group.
REGISTRATION PERIOD: 14 April - 12 May
VISIT DISCOVER THE CGAC INSIDE
TUESDAY, 19 MAY
TIMETABLE: 12.00 p.m. and 6.00 p.m.
DURATION: 50 minutes
Free activity, no prior registration needed
For these two visits, we propose a special itinerary through the lesser-seen spaces of the CGAC. Visitors will explore the storage rooms where works of art are safeguarded and conserved, the restoration and assembly workshops, the sunken courtyard, the library, the art-education classroom, the offices and the boardroom. The tour will culminate at the building’s roof, crowned by the permanent installation by the American artist Dan Graham, Triangular Pavilion.
The visit will start off at the CGAC lobby at 12.00 p.m. and again at 6.00 p.m. The group will be allocated on a first-come, first-served basis, up to a maximum of 25 people. If you are interested, please sign up at the museum lobby on arrival.
OPEN SESSION FOR THE COURSE MEMORIES OF A LATENT IMAGE III
THURSDAY, 21 MAY
TIMETABLE: 7.00-8.30 p.m.
VENUE: CGAC Auditorium
DIRECTOR: Fuco Reyes
This course offers an engaging exploration of how different approaches to photography over recent decades have shaped the current landscape of the medium.
Fuco Reyes presents a personal perspective, using as a guiding thread the work of various photographers whose motivations and intentions converge around themes such as identity, territory, the urban landscape, the body and the face, intimate life, the inexpressive, new documentary photography, the object, and constructed imagery.
Constructed Photography II is the final session of the course and is designed as an event open to the public to mark International Museum Day. Admission is free until the venue reaches full capacity.
OPENING OF THE EXHIBITION MISHA BIES GOLAS
FRIDAY, 22 MAY
TIMETABLE: 8.00 p.m.
VENUE: Double Space
CURATOR: Juan de Nieves
In the mid-nineties, a young Misha Bies Golas (Lalín, Pontevedra, 1977) discovered the CGAC out of impulse and curiosity about the newly founded institution in Santiago de Compostela. Thirty years later, the artist is back with a project condensing over two decades of research on historical avant-gardes, understood as a field of tensions, shifts and unfinished processes.
The CGAC’s ground floor is conceived as a field of forces, across which more than a hundred sculptures and small biomorphic or amoeboid paintings are arranged. These pieces highlight craftsmanship, economy of means and the agency of materials, incorporating error, mutability and contingency as productive strategies that challenge the hierarchies of modern high culture.
FAMILY WORKSHOPS. NEXT STOP… PALESTINE! LARISSA SANSOUR
SATURDAY, 23 MAY (families with children aged 4 to 6)
SUNDAY, 24 MAY (families with children aged 7 to 9)
TIMETABLE: 11.30 a.m. - 1.30 p.m.
PROJECT MANAGEMENT: Sara Donoso
Free activity, subject to prior registration
Larissa Sansour combines science fiction with comics, video and installation to imagine alternative futures and reflect upon how politics is shaped and how the stories we tell influence it. Her work takes us into outer space, to the future or to universes inhabited by very different beings, blending humour, dystopia and social criticism. We’ll create imaginary countries in the form of skyscrapers, invent characters and powers, we’ll explore yet-to-be-discovered planets and build a great collective universe made of lights, sounds and surprising materials.
REGISTRATION: To register or request further information, please send an email to cgac.educacion@xunta.gal.
REGISTRATION PERIOD: 12-21 May
GUIDED TOUR OF THE EXHIBITIONS
SUNDAY, 24 MAY
TIMETABLE: 12.00 p.m.
DURATION: 50 min
Free activity, no prior registration needed
Visitors will be able to enjoy the CGAC exhibitions accompanied by guides specialising in art. The aim of this service is to stimulate interest in contemporary artistic creation and facilitate communication between works of art and the people engaging with them.
Visits will start off at the CGAC lobby at 12:00 p.m. The group will be formed on a first-come, first-served basis until reaching a maximum of 25 people. If you are interested, please sign up at the museum lobby on arrival.