Allowing total freedom of expression, without limitation, while offering techniques and a handbook for times when one suffers from a creative block or impasse: these are the premises behind the work of Bilal Dadou, an artist and researcher of contemporary art from Morocco, during his artist residency with a group of people who have intellectual disabilities but, thanks to this initiative, were able to learn about and try out techniques and materials which allowed them to express themselves and create the pieces on display at this exhibition.

It is a project in which Bilal Dadou has sought to highlight the participants’ own personality traits and skills, though perhaps hidden, and to do so by working with the concept of the self-portrait on the basis of unusual premises. In this case, he had the help of a mirror, used as the vehicle which made it possible to externalize visual forms of expression through the image of each individual in its reflection.

The exhibition being presented on this occasion is the result of three months of work performed together by Bilal Dadou and several individuals with intellectual disabilities: José Antonio Carrasco, Jacobo Gómez, Juan Sancha, Julián Mingo and Luis Sainz de la Cuesta, all of whom live at the Granja San José residence run by the Gil Gayarre Foundation.

The initiative, designed to form a “Converging Art Residency Space,” was translated into a commitment to build a meeting space for artists who work on professional projects and people whose artistic practices take place outside of the academic world, forming part of the project, “Más Cultura, Más Inclusión” (“More Culture, More Inclusion”) of the entity Plena Inclusión Madrid and the Repsol Foundation, which received acknowledgment in the form of Queen Letizia’s Inclusive Culture Award for 2017.