Who we are

The MOSIS FOUNDATION – MOdels and SYstems; Art and City is a non-profit organization, established in Madrid on November 10, 2008, and registered as a cultural foundation on November 20, 2008, under the Ministry of Culture. Its registered office is in Madrid, and it will primarily carry out its activities on a national scale; however, it will also develop its activities internationally, with special dedication to the European Community, Latin America, and the United States.

The purposes of the Foundation are:

A) 3.1. To build the CITY through ART and ARCHITECTURE. / 3.2. To construct MOdels and SYstems of art, of the city, of -art and city-, of -architecture and city-, and of -urbanism and architecture-, which remain faithful to the consideration of the city and art as the locus and vehicle of progress. / 3.3. To promote innovation, encouraging resistance to the inertia of adopting already existing models. / 3.4. To validate Models and Systems. To demonstrate the connections between a model or a system and its parallel impact on daily life, understanding that a model is the form that something takes to express an idea and is intended to be a reference point; and a system is a group of elements, their functions, principles, and relationships, or a structured set. / 3.5. To drive the most proactive and propositional side of philosophy—the one that imagines and designs other worlds, and that creates and builds within the realm of thought.

B) 3.6. To emphasize the function of the city as a place of connection and art as a communicative vehicle. To resist, either as an idea or as a practice, the conversion of the city into an area for consumption and tourism; of the museum into a theme park; of the artwork into a product; of the artist into a tourist-resident; and of the art venue into a holiday “resort.” / 3.7. To promote art as a form of affective knowledge. / 3.8. To promote the function of the “use” of architecture to change habits as well as the morality associated with them.

C) 3.9. To detect “civic vacuums”—that is, situations that have not been identified as problematic despite being so—and “system failures” or anything that is not working well in the daily operations of the city. Once detected, to record their existence and, in some cases, draw attention to them through artistic strategies and propose alternatives.

D) 3.10. To contribute to the free development of personality, in accordance with Article 10 of the Spanish Constitution.

E) 3.11. To safeguard and disseminate the work of Jana Leo, given that her rethinking of art and the city constitutes the very origin of the foundation.

Activities. In order to achieve the aforementioned purposes in the preceding article, the Foundation will carry out the following activities:

A) 4.1. To act as a “THINK-TANK” on contemporary culture, the city, art, urbanism, and architecture, among other activities:
To study existing MOdels and SYstems of Art, City, urbanism, and architecture. / To design new models and attempt to put them into practice by launching them in various fields. / To conduct field work, including the detection of unidentified situations or “operational failures in city life.” / In the case of “failures,” to carry out art projects that convey the exposed facts alongside the emotions bound to them. / 4.2. The foundation will create original concepts that will serve as the baseline for constructing new models of art and city. The ideas behind these new theoretical frameworks will be translated into concrete forms that art centers, museums, cultural and civic centers can integrate into their practical programming. / 4.3. The foundation will design architectural or virtual vessels—whether permanent or nomadic—in which the relationship between art, the city, and different sectors of the population can be reconciled.

B) 4.4. To act as a CONSULTANCY, either by responding to external initiatives—calls for proposals, competitions, and commissions—or without a commission but geared toward a specific user, offering studies and proposals for real problems of existing clients at any scale; from art centers, cultural centers, and museums, to professionals such as architects and artists, up to regional ministries, national ministries, local council departments, or other institutions of political power such as those of culture and tourism. / 4.5. To RE-ANIMATE spaces and entities through operations such as the following three: alterations in use, and/or new programming, and spatial interventions.

C) 4.6 Fees and commercial activities. In order to obtain revenue, the Foundation may charge for its work under the preceding points (4.1., 4.2., 4.3., 4.4., and 4.5. of Article 4), as well as carry out other commercial activities—including publications, the sale of artistic works, and the execution and management of art and architecture projects—the objective of which is related to the foundational purposes or constitutes complementary or secondary activities to the former, subject to regulations governing the defense of competition.
The work is conducted from the perspective of a researcher rather than as a standard service; meaning that, when faced with a problem, in addition to offering a solution and/or an alternative, the context in which it occurs is studied, treating it as a fact or a case study.

Beneficiaries
8.1. The foundational purposes of the Foundation are broadly aimed at the following groups of people:
Art Centers, museums, cultural centers, their workers, directors, and users, and any cultural entity, especially public or non-profit organizations. / Artists, architects, urban planners, writers, philosophers, and sociologists, and everyone concerned with the city and art. / And any person interested in and/or who enjoys the city and art.