Artist and researcher María Ruido’s documentary essay Amphibious Fictions focuses on two Spanish cities in the industrial belt surrounding Barcelona. Ruido researched the social, economic, and emotional changes produced by new conditions imposed on the traditional textile sector, focusing particularly on the lives of female factory workers.

A post-screening discussion will situate this film in relation to a global process - the shift from centralised factory production to systems of flexible, information-based labour - while also considering the specificity of the Spanish context where critical responses to economic change have been sustained by artists and researchers such as Ruido and Morandeira, together with activist collectives, notably the Precarias a la Deriva (Precarious Female Workers Adrift) group, with whom Ruido has collaborated.

Julia Morandeira is a researcher, curator and organiser.

Maria Ruido is an artist, filmmaker, researcher and cultural producer.

Nottingham Contemporary’s public programme is jointly funded by Nottingham Trent University and The University of Nottingham.