Clara Álvarez and Elena Rocabert

Statement

For the last years, Clara Álvarez and Elena Rocabert have been exploring the margins of what is traditionally known as ‘architectural thinking’, seeking experimental environments of study, research and thought, alternative to the academy. They use sculpture, installation and spatial design as critical languages through which they build new narratives to unfold the way humans relate to the territories they inhabit -developing new dynamics of production, distribution and consumption.

In their practice, they aim to generate ambiguous and complex spaces and objects through constant material transformation, deformation and reorganisation. They are particularly interested in the process of transforming and reusing industrial materials as tools to give life to new ideas, seeking experimentation and visual impact. Through their work, they are constantly questioning their relationship with the materials they create with and the territories they come from, as well as its consequences on a planetary level. Their work is therefore at the intersection between material cultures, post-natural landscapes and social ecologies.

GlogauAIR Project

The discourses of architecture and art constantly omit critical realities that are generated as a consequence of the materials we use to think and create, such as extractivism, mining operations, urban and natural peripheries, the origin of the land and minerals we use and their environmental impact. We believe that in these questions and in the search for possible paths through which to think about ourselves in the near future, we truly find all the beauty and complexity of the times we inhabit.

Desertus, from the verb deserere, means to forget or to abandon. The opposite of ‘memory’. A sandy or stony territory which, due to the almost total lack of rainfall, has little or no vegetation.

Every year, Spain loses millions of hectares of soil as a result of the erosive conditions generated by the unsustainable water exploitation of large areas of land. This problem is often aggravated by the mineral exploitation of certain areas. Global warming and resource depletion are accelerating desertification in areas such as Madrid. Here, the average temperature increase in the hottest month will rise by 6.4°C over the next 30 years, making summers very hot, with constant heat waves and little rainfall except in increasingly frequent torrential episodes. Aridity is subtly but violently undermining the landscape through an irreversible process that makes it impossible for its future inhabitants.

Starting from this context, and taking into account that this reality will affect more and more places, we want to develop a project that we have been working on for a few months using post-industrial glass, a product of the extractivism that has brought us to where we are now. In our process, we will recycle and melt this industrial glass to give rise to new forms and materialities, to new future materials. We propose to understand the relationship between temperatures and the processes of transformation of the materials with which we create, to speculate on the contemporary aesthetics of the very thermodynamic change that we undergo. Furthermore, these materials allow us to study and experiment with the beauty that can be generated from used and discarded industrial materials, interceding to prevent them from becoming waste.

In the process of generating industrial glass, sand is used for the manufacture of many glass products, extracted from seabeds, coasts or rivers (not just any land will do). The challenge is that these ecosystems do not regenerate at the rate required for extraction. Our aim is to explore the crossover between natural and industrial products and their consequences, to generate thought from a critical view of what surrounds us. Through this project, we would like to further understand the relationship between extreme temperature, bodies and their transformation processes. All this in order to answer a series of questions:

Is the forest the real piece of art and is forest glass just a consequence of it? But, above all, in the face of the climatic paradigm shift we are experiencing, what forms survive other forms that are falling apart?

Installation and Sculpture

CV Summary

Education

• 2021-present Art & Nature Advanced Studio— Escuela de Cerámica de la Moncloa, (ECM)
• 2019 Master of Architecture— ETSAM, Universidad Politécnica Madrid (UPM)
• 2018 Bachelor of Science in Architecture— ETSAM, Universidad Politécnica Madrid (UPM)
• 2015-2016 Study-abroad program (Bachelor)— Seoul National University (SNU, South Korea) / Universität der Künste Berlin (Germany)

Professional experience

• 2022-present Matadero Madrid (Spain) —Artistic and curatorial coordination at Medialab Matadero
• 2021-present Cultural Landscape Research Group (GIPC) at ETSAM (UPM) — Research Assistant at Universidad Politécnica de Madrid
• 2020-present Freelance collaborations —Art Production for emerging artists from Madrid such as Andrés Izquierdo, Clara Sánchez Sala or Jorge Anguita Mirón.
• 2022 Studio Luis Úrculo, Madrid and Mexico City — Space design and Set design
• 2019-2021 Studio Olafur Eliasson, Berlín (Germany) — Design, developement and production of art works
• 2021 Studio Julius Von Bismarck, Berlin (Germany) — Design and production of artworks
• 2017 María Mallo, Madrid (Spain) — Production team for ‘Ecosistemas emocionales diversos’ project at ‘En los Cantos nos Diluimos’ exhibition. ‘Sala de Arte Joven’, Madrid.
• 2017 Studio Tomás Saraceno, Berlín (Germany) — Artwork design and production

Selected shows

• 2022 ‘Sen lume, negro noite’ — group exhibition of the Art Residencies 2022 at Pazo de Goiáns (Boiro), Galería LaDoce, Galicia (Spain).
• 2022-2023 ‘Madrid, between River and Rails’ (Trahere Project) at CentroCentro exhibition space, Madrid (Spain). Exhibition of drawings, results and research process.
• 2022 ‘Art and Nature’, collective juried show at Escuela de Cerámica de la Moncloa, Madrid (Spain).
• 2022 ‘Enseres’, collective exhibition at Sistema Studio Gallery, Madrid (Spain).
• 2021 ‘A Brief History of Planetary Ice’ lecture and performance at Escuela de Cerámica de la Moncloa (Madrid, Spain).
• 2019 ‘Etenent a Miró’ collective exhibition at Casa Antillón
• 2019 ‘ Other skins’ collective exhibition at Casabanchel
• 2019 ‘ The Catenary & The Arc’, main collaborator of the artistic installation at Insòlit Architecture Festival 2019, Palma de Mallorca (Spain).
• 2018 ‘Becoming’ 16th Biennale di Venezia, collective exhibition at the Spanish Pavilion, Venezia (Italy).
• 2017 ‘Origami’, author of the main artistic pavilion for Concéntrico 03 Architecture Festival at Logroño (La Rioja, Spain).

Seminars, Residencies & Awards

• 2023 Artists in residence GlogauAIR, Berlín
• 2022 How much space do we need? Grant of a 50 hours workshop with the awarded artist Ignasi Aballí— 12 miradas, Vilaseco Gallery (A Coruña, Spain)
• 2022 Artistic Residencies 2022, Concello de Boiro — LaDoce Gallery, Galicia (Spain)
• 2022 Acidic Waters, designing for coexistence— Institute for Postnatural Studies, Madrid (Spain)
• 2019 Postnature and Contemporary Creation— Institute for Postnatural Studies, Madrid (Spain)
• 2017 First Award at Concéntrico 03 Architecture&Art International Competition.

Gallery