ENCLAVE LAND ART
Edition
2022
CONCEPT OF THE RESIDENCY
The Sun's influence is mirrored by a natural separation of the valley itself in two segments: the Solana (permanently sunny side) and the Ombría (shady side). The human distribution within the villages is equally affected, all being located on the southern side of the Gallinera river, the backbone along which the water flows constantly, despite its appearance and disappearance.
The Solana, mainly shrubland, thinly vegetated and strongly sun-exposed, has very high temperatures during the summers. Decades back, this favoured transhumance and livestock transport, as well as the construction of farmyards - although abandoned today, they still stand as a fine expression of the dry-stone construction, typical of the region, and have now become a building heritage of the area.
The Ombría, the shaded area, is characterised by thicker vegetation and colourful terraces stretching across the whole rhombus-shaped valley.
Alongside this anthropic-natural link with the land/sun, a distinctive element, la foradà, originated thanks to the particular orography and an imaginative play of nature.
The natural arch in the rock is a coup du théâtre. The Sun wants to wink and sneak into the shadow. It is an unexpected spot that offers the Sun the chance to participate twice a year in this unattainable place. In the 17th century, some Franciscan monks interpreted this as a divine sign and built a monastery in its honour. The solar alignment reached notoriety and it was reinforced by this building. However, this was lost and forgotten until the beginning of this century.
As José Lull wrote in 2008 in La alineación solar de la foradá en la Vall de Gallinera, nowadays the monastery does not exist anymore. All the traces of its presence were cancelled, even from the collective memory of the valley. Only a vague memory has been heard about its existence before. Even the solar alignment through la foradà was lost. No alignment, no franciscans, no monastery. Everything forgotten, buried forever.
However, in recent years, the alignment of the Sun has made a comeback, and the legend of the monastery it illuminated has become part of territorial history and a rescue of historical memory.
In this second edition of the Enclave Land Art Residency, we invite artists to reflect upon the presence of the Sun and how it affected, is affecting and will affect human nature.
The existence of a dialogue with Mother Earth has always been a constant. We can only understand Nature's signs and thus benefit from them if we are willing to look at them closely and from a variety of different perspectives.
ARTISTS
AMY CUTLER
BIO
Amy Cutler is a live cinema artist and sound designer from London who draws on her unusual training (a PhD in cultural geography) to create site-specific films and projection events. She is interested in cinema which is responsive to the conditions of the environment in which it is placed, and she often creates indoor and outdoor projects which draw on fieldwork, ecologies, local archives, and atmospheric data. Previously in her practice she has created live cinema and audio-visual installations for specific locations, including Pendle Hill, Lancashire; Lud’s Church Ravine, Staffordshire; and even an uninhabited Finnish fortress island, Örö. Overall, her work explores the intersections of species, spaces, and audiences, with a particular interest in rituals of place and community gatherings (such as skygazing).
HIROSHI ICHIKAWA
BIO
Landscape Designer / Artist in Tokyo, Japan.
As a landscape designer / artist, I always think and care about the relationship between people and the natural environment. With deep respect for sites, vernacular elements and local community, I believe that Land Art throws out a hint / question about this relationship, which can only be experienced on the site.
ANA MATEY
BIO
Ana Matey (Madrid, 1978) is a visual artist, performer, photographer, cultural activist and tireless researcher. Her work is a profound exploration of the limits of the human body and its relationship with nature, articulated mainly through three key verbs: to walk, to collect and to displace. Since 2001 her work is present in museums, galleries, theaters and independent spaces in Spain, Europe in Italy, Portugal, France, England, Ireland, Germany, Poland, Hungary, Holland, Bosnia, Croatia, Norway, Switzerland and Finland; outside Europe in Costa Rica, Mexico, Dominican Republic, Canada, Morocco, Indonesia and Japan. Since 2006, she has been working in parallel to her creative work in the field of dynamisation, research and training. Co-founder of ElCarromato, (2006/10), where ARTóN, (2009/14) was born. And the current EXCHANGE Live Art, a collective creation and research project with the artist Isabel León (2012) and MATSUcreación (2012). She has received numerous creative grants and awards. The latest, MAV Biennial Award with EXCHANGE (2022), the Centro de Arte Contemporáneo Medioambiental Valdelarte with “Conversaciones con lo Natural”, Huelva (2020), the Centro de Arte La Regenta with “Sobre el acto de caminar”, Las Palmas (2019).
LEONARDO MAGNANI
BIO
Leonardo Magnani was born in 1981 in Florence. BFA at the Academy of Fine Arts, Florence in 2005. Lived and worked in London between 2008 to 2012. In 2013 he received a grant from MIBAC (Italian council for art and cultural events) for an artist residency in Argentina. Since 2015 he is based in Florence, Italy. In 2018 he opened Underwood studio , a multifunction space -Lab ,sharing skill & facilities. Creative incubator.
FILIPA PONTES
BIO
Filipa Pontes is a visual artist and researcher from Portugal. In the last ten years, she has participated in international exhibitions and art residencies in countries such as Portugal, Spain, Mozambique, Brazil, China, Norway, and Germany. She also works as an independent curator and as a professor. Filipa is an expert in contemporary drawing (Ph.D. in Fine Arts in Practice). Additionally, she holds a degree in Graphic Design and a postgraduate in Creative Illustration. Currently lives between Leipzig (Germany) and Lisbon (Portugal).
VICTOR MASFERRER
BIO
I’m graduated in Sculpture at Escola Massana in Barcelona, and simultaneously graduated in Philosophy at the University of Girona, finishing my studies at the University of Rome “La Sapienza”. I combine my projects as a sculptor as a consulting professor of the Degree in Arts at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC), where I run the materials laboratory. As an artist I have been developing for years a research related to light and perceptual processes, experimental photography and its technologies, linked to the relationship we have today with the image. I am interested in the nature of form and the forms of nature, the relationship we have with it and with the environment around us. I poetically investigate the symbolic relationships we have with the world, with geometry and with space. I have shown my work in La Capella (Barcelona), Espai d’Art Torre Muntadas (Barcelona), in the Bòlit Art Contemporary Center (Girona) in the Museum of History of Girona, in various points of the Navarre geography in a project coordinated by the Centro Huarte in Pamplona, among others. I have received grants such as Idensitat collective (Barcelona) or the grant for young artists from the Fundació Domènech Fita, in Girona. I have carried out artistic residencies in Italy, in Salt and Girona.
MACARENA AGUILAR TAU
BIO
Macarena Aguilar Tau aka MAQ es artista sonora, compositora, productora, investigadora y docente nacida en Argentina. Ha estudiado en la Facultad de Artes de la Universidad Nacional de La Plata donde obtuvo los títulos de licenciada y profesora de música con orientación en dirección orquestal. Actualmente su trabajo está ligado a la exploración del sonido del entorno y sus posibilidades creativas. Lleva adelante el proyecto de sonoteca colaborativa @1200km_h, donde reúne grabaciones de campo y difunde reflexiones sobre el paisaje acústico, prácticas de escucha, ecología acústica y bioacústica. En sus trabajos ha realizado música original y diseño sonoro para películas, cortometrajes, obras de teatro, danza, performance, instalaciones, realidad virtual y podcasts. Además ha investigado y escrito diversos artículos sobre compositoras argentinas pioneras en la música electrónica. En julio de 2022 ha editado su primer álbum “Materiales” junto al sello “The Journey you never had”. En la actualidad imparte el workshop “Arqueología electroacústica” donde comparte estrategias creativas para la composición a partir del registro de audio.