︎︎︎“A VEGETAL CARTOGRAPHY: (DE)CONSTRUCTING THE ENVIRONMENT”Experimental laboratory curated and moderated by Natalia Pilo-Pais (PER) and Alvaro Aroca (CL/ESP)
october 21 to november 12, 2022
Workshop aimed at artists, cultural mediators,art students, anthropologists, urban planners, architects and, in general, anyone who wanted to address issues such as plant and spatial memory. It was carried out within the scope of TECHO SOSTENIDO's work. The idea was to develop a collective project based on the results of research into the urban landscape in order to
generate proximity to the plant state. The participants, through critical thinking and collective dialogue, experimented with other ways of relating to the environment. They studied the spaces where they live, whether past spatial memories or their new environments. The ultimate goal was to create visual and conceptual documentation, using techniques that develop knowledge and reflections based on this collective work, thus also allowing the recovery of memories and the exploration of records related to experiences
with nature and their connection to their native territory.
*Natalia Pilo Pais Figallo (PER) Visual Artist - With a master's degree in Philosophy. She has exhibited internationally in solo and group exhibitions, including Galería del Paseo (Peru and Uruguay), Centro Cultural España (Peru), Reparaciones Circulares o The Long Game of Patience (Chile), Sala de Arte de la Fundación Minera Escondida (Chile), Museo MATE (Peru) and Casa Tres Patios (Colombia), among others. Many of these projects have been developed from territorial research in different parts of South America through artistic residencies such as SACO (Chile), Casa Tres Patios (Colombia) with the MAMM Museum of Modern Art of Medellín (Colombia) and Fundación 'ace (Argentina). She has also exhibited at art fairs including Lima Photo and Art Lima (Peru), Art Medellín and Art Cartagena (Colombia) and Art Wynwood (USA), among others. Natalia currently resides in Madrid, where from 2021 to 2022 she completed a residency at ESPACIO DE TODO (part of the Todo por la Praxis collective) and has participated in various activities, including SESIÓN CRÍTICA DE PROYECTOS 2 – a conversation led by Bruno Leitão at Matadero (2021); LA CIUDAD Y LA INVENCIÓN: Encounters between architecture, anthropology and art - a workshop curated by Adolfo Estalella and Pablo Arboleda, with the collaboration of Tamara Arroyo at Intermediæ Matadero (2022); EL MUSEO PORTÁTIL DE SABERES - a workshop curated by Grigri projects in parallel with the ensamblajes programme at Medialab Matadero (2021); and WEAVING IN COLLECTIVE - activity curated by Grigri projects that accompanied the exhibition ‘Triología Marroquì’ at the Reina Sofía National Art Museum (2021). His work has recently been highlighted by Daniela Ruiz Moreno in the publication Comer relaciona (y confronta mundos) by the Spanish Cultural Centre in Mexico.
*Alvaro Aroca Cordova (CL/ESP) Artist - Doctor of Research and Creation in Art. Resides in Madrid, Spain. Transdisciplinary artist who works with artistic processes linked to and for nature, as a captive construct of modernity from decolonial aesthetics. In his previous Master's and Doctorate work at the EHU/UPV in Bilbao (Spain), he contextualises other ways of confronting our surroundings and our political construction of the body through performance. To carry out this production, he has developed individual and collective exhibitions in Chile, France, Spain, the Netherlands and South Korea. Research is an essential part of her work, through artistic residencies at Open Atelier Zuidoost Foundation Rochdale (Amsterdam), Consorcio de Museos de Valencia (Chile/Spain), Espacio Réflex (Basque Country), among others. In 2022, she is developing an exhibition project for CBK ZUIDOOST Centrum Beeldende Kunst Zuidoost (Southeast Visual Arts Centre), Amsterdam, in conjunction with the Stedelijk Museum and the Department of Paintings and Sculpture of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) in Kumasi, Ghana. In addition to being part of the Geumgang Nature Art Biennale 2022 (South Korea), which opened in August 2022, he works for Gallery WM in Amsterdam, where he has exhibited together with the Iande Collective, of which he has been a member since 2020.
︎︎︎Public opening “A VEGETABLE CARTOGRAPHY: (DE)CONSTRUCTING THE ENVIRONMENT”
The results of the laboratory A Vegetable Cartography: Deconstructing the Environment were publicly unveiled, showcasing the participants' research processes, visual notes of drifts, and the different forms that resulted from the exchange of knowledge in the working sessions. Through this exhibition, they sought to arrive at a definition of a fourth landscape, based on the study by Gilles Clement. It was an opportunity to visualise other ways of experiencing landscape through emotion, culture and the exchange of ideas.
Approaching the Fourth Landscape
Giles Clement's concept of the third landscape stipulates that it is made up of the set of residual spaces located on the margins of organised territory and that it brings together a great deal of biological diversity. These residual spaces are the result of the abandonment of previously exploited land. To approach what could be a fourth landscape, the laboratory started from the aesthetic experience of the subject facing the landscape as an exercise in reflection. This reflection led them to understand the inherent unity between the landscape and the subject, whose interrelation develops an aesthetic experience that is sensory, transformative, emotional and cultural. The landscape is no longer just a physical space, but is configured as a psychogeographical dialogue.