The Hybrid Festival 2019 is committed to international artistic exchange.

The fourth edition of the competition, held in Madrid, features the SWAP project, which will also focus especially on artists from Ukraine.

Although it may be a cliché, there is something about art that makes it a language common to all, regardless of which one we use. That is why it seems like an epithet (that rhetorical figure that the language teacher explained with 'white snow' or 'green grass') to say that an art festival is international. But in the case of the Hybrid Festival, it is in its DNA. And it goes beyond that.

The Hybrid Festival has returned to Madrid for its fourth edition from 13 to 28 September. And it has done so, in addition, by going all out: 38 venues that have given up their spaces and more than 150 artists spread throughout the capital, from Prosperidad to Carabanchel. That's nothing compared to what began as a competition for hybrid art exhibitions (hence the name, we are not going to be more papist than the Pope) and emerging artists (eleven of whom are competing this year for the Impulsarte award).

But let's get to the heart of the matter: the international theme. Because the Hybrid Festival presents as a novelty this year SWAP , an initiative of collaboration with other countries for an artistic exchange. There will be six spaces in which exhibitions and activities will take place, with the aim, of course, of creating synergies between local and foreign creators and distributors.

The first guests come from London and are called Art Licks . They will be at Espacio Vista on September 18 and 19 with an exhibition that tries to rethink the figure of the artistic curator. On Wednesday 25, at La Juan Gallery , the German collective Coven Berlin , specialized in gender, feminism and sexuality issues, will perform a performance in which they will reimagine a queer future . In addition, from the 24th to the 27th, in Alfama Madrid and coming from Boiro (Galicia, because not everything is going to be Madrid centralism), the collective La Doce will carry out a project specifically designed for the space and entitled Waiting Room .

In addition, the country that is the focus of SWAP's first year is Ukraine, as groups from up to three cities will be the focus of attention: kyiv, Dnipro and Kharkiv.

From the capital, Dismantlement will be coming (September 20-26), to the space Nadie, Nunca, Nada, No , curated by Anna Sorokovaya, from the Soshenko 33 collective, a meeting place for artists from the Academy of Fine Arts in Kiev.

Dnipro will fly to Madrid from 17 to 20 September with the exhibition Soot, by the Artsvit group. It will be in the EFTI hall , where artists Daniil Revkovskiy and Andriy Rachinskiy examine the industrial reconversion after the collapse of the Soviet Union from a contemporary perspective.

Finally, photography, which comes to Le Mur Photo Gallery from the hand of Ukrainian artist Igor Chekachkov and his project NA4JOPM8 (2018). With this series, the artist seeks to create metaphotographic questions about the limits of private space or how to expand the common fields of the image. Let's think about it.