Installation
2023–2025
Clay leaves the vitrine and occupies the floor, the wall, and the light of the room as a single work.
The earth keeps everything. It holds the traces of human passage, the marks of extraction, the invisible fractures left in territories as in bodies. In this exhibition, stoneware becomes a material of memory: a mineral skin capable of absorbing time, pressure, wear, and transformation. The sculptures brought together here explore the links between landscape, material, and the exploitation of natural resources. Each form seems to emerge from a slow process—erosion, sedimentation, dissolution—as if the earth itself were trying to recount what has been taken from it. Between archaeological presence and contemporary fragment, the works oscillate between fragility and resistance. They evoke reliefs, vestiges, surfaces altered by invisible forces. What appears is not only the trace of extraction, but also what remains after it: the residues, the scars, the buried memories. The exhibition thus proposes a shift in perspective. To observe the landscape not as a static backdrop, but as a living body, traversed by political, economic, and sensitive tensions. The earth is no longer a simple material: it becomes a witness, an archive, and an active presence.
It brings together a painting and ceramic pieces evoking the vestiges of a structure abandoned in a desert landscape. Its serpentine form mixes the organic and the artificial, between archaeological relic and declining industrial architecture. Partly buried, the object appears as a trace in the desert, a possible “future relic” questioning our relationship to landscapes, resources, and the ecological mutations underway.
A chessboard of fresh earth dissolves drop by drop. The serum falls methodically, erasing the squares and blurring the sides. The pieces lose their edges — kings, pawns, strategies — and turn into water-soaked earth; the established order becomes mud. What was combat becomes the slow flow of water over the rules, revealing the fragility of the game. Here rest the certainties: dissolved in their own shroud of clay.
The earth keeps everything. It holds the traces of human passage, the marks of extraction, the invisible fractures left in territories as in bodies. In this exhibition, stoneware becomes a material of memory: a mineral skin capable of absorbing time, pressure, wear, and transformation. The sculptures brought together here explore the links between landscape, matter, and the exploitation of natural resources. Each form seems to emerge from a slow process—erosion, sedimentation, dissolution—as if the earth itself were trying to recount what has been taken from it. Between archaeological presence and contemporary fragment, the works oscillate between fragility and resistance. They evoke reliefs, vestiges, surfaces altered by invisible forces. What appears is not only the trace of extraction, but also what remains after it: the residues, the scars, the buried memories.
The earth keeps everything. It retains the traces of human passage, the marks of extraction, the invisible fractures left in territories as well as in bodies. In this exhibition, stoneware becomes a material of memory: a mineral skin capable of absorbing time, pressure, wear, and transformation. The sculptures brought together here explore the links between landscape, matter, and the exploitation of natural resources. Each form seems to emerge from a slow process—erosion, sedimentation, dissolution—as if the earth itself were trying to tell the story of what has been taken from it. Between archaeological presence and contemporary fragment, the works oscillate between fragility and resistance. They evoke reliefs, remnants, surfaces altered by invisible forces. What appears is not only the trace of extraction, but also what remains after it: residues, scars, buried memories. Brought together in the form of a mural, the pieces compose a cartography of textures and perceptions. They expose the raw material in a gradient from black to white, thus constructing an archaeological essay, like a collection of discovered objects that recount ancient and diverse morphologies of the earth.
Passages is a work that leads through the most hidden corridors of our mind, losing its viewer in a labyrinth without tributaries where we discover sensations that can reach as far as terror.
The movement of the inert is born from within the living, where their differences become similarities on contact; that reaction is life. On the other hand, abandonment, death, is accompanied by that particular characteristic we the living leave on objects, differentiating them from others. The anthropomorphised object as a reflection on movement, stillness, and manipulation.
When the desert reclaims brings together a painting and ceramic pieces evoking the remains of an abandoned structure in a desert landscape. Its serpentine form mixes organic and artificial elements, oscillating between an archaeological relic and industrial architecture in decline. The presence of lithium in both works refers to the extraction of natural resources and the transformations it imposes on the territories. Partially buried, the object appears as a trace in the desert, a possible "future relic" that questions our relationship with landscapes, with resources, and with the ecological changes underway. Ink and lithium Playground Gaspar Aveta, 2025 Installation — clay, water, serum A chessboard of fresh earth disintegrates drop by drop. The serum falls methodically, erasing the squares, confusing the sides. The pieces lose their edges — kings, pawns, strategies — then metamorphose into earth soaked in water; the established order becomes mud. What was a battle becomes the slow flow of water over the rules, thus revealing the fragility of the game. Here lie certainties: dissolved in their own clay shroud
When the Desert Reclaims brings together a painting and ceramic pieces evoking the remains of an abandoned structure in a desert landscape. Its serpentine form mixes organic and artificial elements, oscillating between an archaeological relic and declining industrial architecture. The presence of lithium in both works refers to the extraction of natural resources and the transformations it imposes on the territories. Partially buried, the object appears as a trace in the desert, a possible "future relic" that questions our relationship to landscapes, resources, and ongoing ecological changes. Ink and lithium Playground Gaspar Aveta, 2025 Installation — clay, water, serum A chessboard of fresh earth crumbles drop by drop. The serum falls methodically, erasing the squares, confusing the sides. The pieces lose their edges — kings, pawns, strategies — then metamorphose into water-soaked earth; the established order becomes mud. What was a battle becomes the slow flow of water over the rules, thus revealing the fragility of the game. Here lie certainties: dissolved in their own clay shroud
"matter holds the memory of the world". Like DNA that travels through time, matter carries configurations that precede and exceed us. Here, these forms are not invented: they are reactivated. And in this reactivation, what emerges—image and sculpture—stems from a shared condition, something that also constitutes us. The piece, in its volume, appears as an open and traversed nucleus; a cavity-fissure that allows access to an interior where the folds can be read as sedimentations of history and time. From this same body come the pigments: what was interior moves, extends, and becomes cartography, surface, recording. The paintings extend this principle. They do not represent: they expose. They function as a kind of material endoscopy, where the surface becomes a field of inscription. Between volume and plane, there is no opposition, but a continuity. A single body that concentrates and deploys. A single pulsation that runs through the form, like an active memory that insists on making itself visible. Returning to matter is returning to know-how. To those practices where doing and thinking are not separate. And in this return, the work does not limit itself to being shown: it allows itself to be read, just as the earth is read, just as our history is read.
A single body “matter holds the memory of the world”. Like DNA that travels through time, matter carries configurations that precede and surpass us. Here, these forms are not invented: they are reactivated. And in this reactivation, what emerges—image and sculpture—stems from a shared condition, something that also constitutes us. The piece, in its volume, appears as an open and traversed core; a cavity-fissure that allows access to an interior where the folds can be read as sedimentations of history and time. From this same body come the pigments: what was interior moves, extends, and becomes cartography, surface, recording. The paintings extend this principle. They do not represent: they expose. They function as a kind of material endoscopy, where the surface becomes a field of inscription. Between volume and plane, there is no opposition, but a continuity. A single body that concentrates and unfolds. A single pulsation that runs through the form, like an active memory that insists on making itself visible. To return to matter is to return to know-how. To those practices where doing and thinking are not separate. And in this return, the work does not limit itself to being shown: it allows itself to be read, just as the earth is read, just as our history is read.
A frame of graphite and charcoal, broken then repaired with gold. Before it, a mountain of charcoal, both a refuge and an obstacle. In its heart, a grain of gold awaits. The work dialogues with kintsugi: the fracture is not hidden, it is illuminated. Darkness is not an end, but a threshold. What seems to be ruin is perhaps a waiting seed. A space to look at what is broken. A promise that something can germinate.
Playing Field 2 continues the research initiated with Playing field, an installation in which an earthen board slowly dissolves under the constant fall of a drop of water. As the water erases the squares and undoes the pieces, the game progressively loses its structure and its order. From that installation, the king survives. The piece is moved to another space and placed once again under the action of the water. At the beginning, the king is whole, still retaining its shape and its appearance of authority. But the repeated action of a single drop slowly begins to transform the material. Over time, a part of the crown breaks off and falls to the ground. This fragment is the result of a transformation that happens in reality. The sculpture does not represent a collapse, but rather experiences its own collapse. The king, separated from the board that supported its position, is isolated from the structure that gave it meaning. The fall of the crown introduces a political dimension to the work, linked to the fragility of authority structures and the systems that sustain them. The king remains standing, but that which distinguishes it and symbolizes its power no longer occupies its place. Water acts as a minimal and persistent force. It does not destroy immediately. One drop after another modifies the material until a transformation that seemed impossible becomes visible. Power does not disappear all at once: it progressively loses what sustains it. Time thus becomes a sculptural agent. What remains on the ground is not just a ceramic fragment, but the material record of a transformation.
This work brings together the ceramic pieces made by the children of the workshop. Each participant created a different imprint, inspired by the shapes, textures, and traces that can be observed in nature. The pieces were made mainly from terracotta, a red-colored clay, accompanied by shades of green and brown that evoke the colors of the soil, stones, plants, and natural landscapes. Brought together, they form a large mural, like a collection of traces and discoveries. Some imprints recall fragments of earth, others rocks or surfaces shaped by time. Together, they tell a common story about nature and the multiple forms that earth can take.