A punto de ser nada
A punto de ser nada was conceived as a kind of ghost library. It preserves landscapes on the brink of disappearance. It presents, in a survey not only vertical but in all directions, traces of matter, energy, and forms. Taken as a whole, these have been located and created during various fieldwork sessions in the company of Irene Grau, Juan López, and Jorge Yeregui over the past three years. The research links times and fields, as well as all kinds of substances. It incorporates records and lives present in the daily life of this place where we find ourselves and shared across countless other places on the planet. It moves between karst, mines, mountains, high-impact infrastructures, and agrarian imagery: complex hybrids of history, occasionally connected by aesthetic, poetic, and political tunnels and galleries that are not immediately apparent. It anticipates the need to expand our imaginaries to provide narratives with a different resonance, capable of restoring our empathy, impact, and responsibility for global presents and futures, observed from a mountain region in the rural Leonese countryside.
A punto de ser nada is a research project that assembles part of the prior work developed over the last ten years at FCAYC and that starting point—the landscape before and beneath our eyes—with an exhibition that touches the ground with the intention of sensing what comes next: what affinities and futures we need to imagine in order to continue life in view of its own ghosts.
‘About A punto de ser nada’ – Irene Grau
[…] one can see how it performs a kind of mourning work around these first two stages, which have left an indelible mark—literally—on the Leonese mountains. How could one not see Irene Grau’s black monochromes as symbols of this melancholic affliction? There is earth in this black painting: the earth of the shine of metals, the opacity of matter, the fluidity of water, the glow and burn of flame, the human effort and pain that was fused and beaten with it. […]
Alberto Ruiz de Samaniego for the exhibition guide.
‘Returning its Noise’ – Juan López
Based on the idea of slate records from the era when sound was engraved on this mineral to be later reproduced, the concept arose to show a large “turntable” to make the stone play. To see what happens when those grooves and naturally generated reliefs are amplified. Using a robot made specifically for the occasion, a needle scratches different parts of a large slate mural, which is then translated into sound. In turn, this scratching action leaves marks on the slate, creating a kind of new fossil. Finally, the sound translation is emitted into the environment, returning to it what belongs to it.