TROGLOSOMA
year:
2024
Composed of three artists, two architects, a curator and a scientist, our collective collaborates with the Altamira National Museum and Research Center. Situated in Santillana del Mar, Cantabria, on the northern coast of the Iberian Peninsula, the Cave of Altamira was discovered in 1868 and its Museum showcases Paleolithic art and artifacts dated – for the oldest – from around 36’000 years ago.
The cave has indeed been closed to the public since 1977, and is now observable – besides for archaeologists and five lucky visitors a week – only as a fac-simile in the museum named Neocueva. In this situation, we found ourselves unable to enter the cave. However, we explored the site more in-depth than any visitor, bringing our bodies closer to the ground. To understand this gigantic and entangled organism, we articulate a methodology through sensoriality and speculative fiction, alongside Chilean SF writer, Simón López Trujillo.
Interested in the deep time that this Naturecultural place manifests, we investigate notions such as the absent, dichotomies between encounter and contagion, conservationism, decomposition, cohabitation, and the artificial through speculative endeavors that explore more-than-human perspectives and scales.
How to reach the invisible?
How to narrate the cave through other beings?
How to blur the boundaries between living and inert?
location:
Madrid, Spainteam:
laura fernández antolín, Sofia Kouloukouri, Manuel Prados, Elena Rocabert, Oxel Urra Sánchez, Jorge Van Den Eyndeyear:
2024commissioner:
Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary (TBA21)Composed of three artists, two architects, a curator and a scientist, our collective collaborates with the Altamira National Museum and Research Center. Situated in Santillana del Mar, Cantabria, on the northern coast of the Iberian Peninsula, the Cave of Altamira was discovered in 1868 and its Museum showcases Paleolithic art and artifacts dated – for the oldest – from around 36’000 years ago.
The cave has indeed been closed to the public since 1977, and is now observable – besides for archaeologists and five lucky visitors a week – only as a fac-simile in the museum named Neocueva. In this situation, we found ourselves unable to enter the cave. However, we explored the site more in-depth than any visitor, bringing our bodies closer to the ground. To understand this gigantic and entangled organism, we articulate a methodology through sensoriality and speculative fiction, alongside Chilean SF writer, Simón López Trujillo.
Interested in the deep time that this Naturecultural place manifests, we investigate notions such as the absent, dichotomies between encounter and contagion, conservationism, decomposition, cohabitation, and the artificial through speculative endeavors that explore more-than-human perspectives and scales.
How to reach the invisible?
How to narrate the cave through other beings?
How to blur the boundaries between living and inert?
