BARCELONA.- The power of the community often underpins collective memory. Many historical commemorations are led by popular initiatives.

At Espai 13 of the Fundació Joan Miró, Lola Lasurt examines two of these rituals of remembrance: one through a video showing the monuments erected to the pedagogue and founder of the Modern School Francesc Ferrer i Guàrdia in Brussels and Barcelona; and another through a series of pictorial works that revisit a citizen initiative to rename the main square in the town of Mont-roig del Camp after the painter Joan Miró.

The exhibition Double authorization, a double take on commemorative rituals, is on display from 28 March to 24 June.

A double projection of footage relating to Ferrer i Guàrdia occupies the centre of the exhibition space. One side of the screen shows the monument that was erected in his honour by popular demand in Brussels in 1911, following his execution by firing squad in Montjuïc. It now stands in front of the Université Libre de Bruxelles. The other side of the screen shows images of tourists in front of a reproduction of this monument that was placed near the entrance to the Olympic Ring in Montjuïc in 1990, and is often mistaken for a sculpture of an athlete.

The second part of the exhibition consists of a series of diptychs displayed around the room. These works deal with the renaming of the main square in the town of Mont-roig del Camp from Plaza del Generalísimo Franco to Plaça Joan Miró, based on images from the Town Council’s photographic archive and on footage by the filmmaker Martí Rom, who was one of the promoters of the name change in 1979.

Lola Lasurt created the diptychs by reinterpreting half of the documentation through the lens of historical paintings, and the other half through abstract processes. Her interpretations of the abstract paintings were produced with the collaboration of the Espai 14-15 painting workshop and high school students majoring in art at the IES Bellvitge and Centre Esclat in L'Hospitalet de Llobregat.

A series of related activities will accompany the exhibition at Espai 13, including the launch on 3 April of Monument a Ferrer i Guàrdia - 23 fotos, a publication based on Lola Lasurt’s visual research into the reproduction and the re-locations of the monument, an experimental television workshop, and a documentary film program. On 3 May at Fundació Joan Miró, members of the Centre Miró de Mont-roig del Camp will create a work using safatans (coloured shavings) in the tradition of the carpets that are made as part of religious ceremonies, on this occasion in homage to Joan Miró.

This is the third exhibition in the Preventive Archaeology series curated by Oriol Fontdevilla as part of the programme of activities commemorating the 1714 Tercentenary in Catalonia. During the course of the 2013-2014 season, four artistic projects – by Oriol Vilanova, Lúa Coderch, Lola Lasurt and Antonio Gagliano – present a reading of collective memory by revisiting different ways of explaining history from the perspective of the present. Like the topographic surveys that are carried out in the lead up to an archaeological excavation, the programme explores the legacies and the elements that have come down to us today and connect us to the past.