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I am Montse Badia, art historian and curator of exhibitions and projects. I am co-founder and director of A*DESK.
I am concerned about the standardization we are experiencing and the loss of rights. I believe that analysis of the past is crucial to understanding the present. I transfer all this to the curatorial practice and to the editorial field based on research and transdisciplinary work.
We don’t just have a close relationship with water: we are water. 70% of our bodies and 71% of the planet are water, but only 2% is freshwater. Water is a finite resource that circulates, regenerates, and transforms, but cannot be created. The natural cycle can no longer keep pace with global demand: if in 1900 humanity consumed about 670 km³ annually, today it consumes nearly 4,000[1]. We are, therefore, facing an ecological crisis that challenges the way we consume and manage this common good, which is also a human right.
The renewable water available—from rain, aquifers, reservoirs, or tanks—depends on a complex infrastructure for collection, transportation, and treatment: wells, canals, desalination plants, and wastewater treatment plants. All of this forms a vital network that sustains human life, but also industrial, agricultural, and energy resources. It is no coincidence that the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale placed water at the center of the debate: while the Catalan Pavilion championed radical imagination as a tool to address its crisis, Benedetta Tagliabue’s project, The Architecture of Virtual Water, made the invisible water footprint visible.
Drinking, eating, producing, and moving around require water. Therefore, almost all countries have Water Laws that regulate usage rights, quality, services, and tariffs, as well as the protection of rivers and lakes. Despite being a free resource, its treatment and distribution entail high costs. In many territories, scarcity and unequal access have generated tensions (water wars) that cross borders: this is the case with the conflicts around the Tigris and Euphrates, the Crimean Canal, Lake Chad, and the Eastern Mediterranean, as well as of abuses by transnational corporations in strategic economic sectors, which cause a negative impact on the environment and the affected communities[2].
Given this scenario, it is necessary to imagine hydro-social pacts[3] that integrate scientific, community, and environmental knowledge to ensure sustainable and fair management. As Yayo Herrero[4] argues, recovering the memory of the five elements—water, air, earth, fire, and life—is essential to rethinking our relationship with the world. Water is a resource, a metaphor, and a memory; a force that shapes territories, bodies, and relationships.
Within this framework, Water Cartographies proposes a journey through four artistic practices that transform water into a device of perception, a historical trace, a genealogy of the body, and a tool of resistance. The exhibition unfolds as a confluence of perspectives that link ecology, spirituality, technology, and care. The works invite us to pause, to listen to the passage of time and the body, to perceive liquidity as a space of relationship and shared memory.
Anna Dot. Libacions [Libations] (2022–ongoing)
Libations is a project consisting of a series of ceramic pateras and collective actions. It is inspired by Greek libation rituals, in which water or wine was poured in honor of the deceased. The vases, decorated with local flora and fauna, have been activated in Paris, Villava, and Sant Martí d’Empúries. In this latest action, included in the exhibition Waters, Languages, and Forgetfulness (Museo del Mediterráneo, 2024), the libations followed the historical path of the Ter River, from Colomers to the Mediterranean, paying homage to an ancient branch of the river now reduced to irrigation canals. Libations combines research, poetic gesture, and community, reminding us that every drop contains a story.
Caterina Miralles Tagliabue. 0.5 (2025)
0.5 is an audiovisual installation that contrasts the technological intelligence of climate research centers with the wisdom of the fishermen of the Venetian Lagoon. The title, “0.5 cm,” alludes to the annual rise in water levels, a symbol of the impact of the Anthropocene. Divided into four thematic sections, it combines data, stories, and landscapes to reflect on ecology, memory, and the coexistence of human and non-human forms of knowledge. The work becomes a space for observation and listening where scientific information and traditional wisdom converge in a single flow.
Fina Miralles. Mar, cel i terra [Sea, Sky, and Earth] (1973) and El retorn [The Return] (2012)
Key figure of the Catalan conceptual art, Miralles has explored the direct relationship between body and nature through actions with earth, grass, stones, and water. Sea, Sky, and Earth is a collage that combines words and images—sea, sky, cloud, rain, sun—to allude to the ecosystem as a living unit. The Return is the photographic record of a later action that directly connects with those carried out in the 1970s (Relationships. The Body’s Relationship with Water. The Body in the Sea) and also relates to his work on the figure of women, the fountain, the sea, and women of water as forms of ancestral memory. As the artist says: “What is important is the water that sings, the living water. The water sings, the birds sing, the mermaids, the whales, and we sing.”[5] His work invites us to relearn how to listen to this primal song, as an act of affirmation and grounding.
Stella Rahola Matutes. La Cronometradora [The Timekeeper] (2023)
The Timekeeper is an installation that turns glass into a metaphor for water and time. Through a translucent and breathing architecture, the work reflects on the artisanal and scientific process of the material, its porous and mutable nature. Rahola proposes a “drinkable” art, made of steam and light, that reminds us of the interdependence between matter, medium, and body. Her research connects tradition and innovation, manual knowledge and technology, and champions an artistic practice committed to sustainability and caring for the planet.
Thus, Water Cartographies traces an itinerary that combines sensitivity, knowledge, and commitment. The works assembled speak to the need to imagine a new water culture—a culture that recognizes water not as a resource to be exploited, but as a shared way of life. In times of climate emergency, these practices invite us to think from the perspective of flow, to understand that, like water, we too are part of an endless cycle of transformation and return.
[Water Cartographies is a group exhibition curated by Montse Badia, with the artists Anna Dot, Fina Miralles, Caterina Miralles Tagliabue, Stella Rahola Matutes, and presented at the Fundació Úniques 11/6/25 – 2/14/26]
[1] Paniagua, Jesús M. Agua. Historia, Tecnología y Futuro [Water. History, Technology, and the Future]. Ed. Guadalmazán, Madrid 2023.
[2] Arenal Lora, Libia (ed.), Negocios insaciables: Estados, Transnacionales, Derechos humanos y Agua. [Insatiable Business: States, Transnational Corporations, Human Rights, and Water]. Ed. Fundación para la Cooperación APY Solidaridad en Acción, 2015.
[3] Cerarols Ramírez, Rosa. “Hydrosocial Pact” at 100 words for the water: a vocabulary. (Ed. Eva Franch i Gilabert, Mireia Luzárraga, Alejandro Muiño). Catalog Catalonia in Venice. Water Parliaments. Collateral Event of the 19th International Architecture Exhibition _ La Biennale di Venezia. Lars Müller Publishers, Institut Ramon Llull and Col·legi d’Arquitectes de Catalunya (COAC), 2025
[4] Herrero, Yayo. Los cinco elementos. Una cartilla de alfabetización ecológica. [The Five Elements: An Ecological Literacy Primer] Arcàdia Editors. Barcelona, 2021.
[5] Fina Miralles in conversation with Mireia Sallarès. “The water sings, we sing”. Video-interview. Fons #06 MACBA, 2021
Date: Thursday, 16 October 2025, 19:30 h
Location: MACBA, Auditorio Meier, Barcelona
The lecture “Bodies of Evidence” with Adam Broomberg & Ido Nahari analyzes the circulation and functioning of violent images of past and present genocides.
From Gaza to Namibia, Nahari and Broomberg review the visual techniques of demonization and glorification in war imagery to address their fundamental role in defining and representing the moral limits of violence. The debate revolves around the new fundamentalist grammar created by this documentation, which visualizes affliction—the shattered bodies of vulnerable victims facing seemingly invulnerable invaders—and thus sanctifies certain ways of life while devaluing others.
This presentation follows and expands on the reflections we introduced last July (links to articles below), continuing our exploration of how images circulate, codify, and shape the perception of violence.
Cover image © Adam Berry
“Bodies of Evidence” is an event organized by A*DESK and PEI OBERT – MACBA.
Matthew Lopez’s play The Inheritance is about different generations of gay men in New York City: those of today and those of yesterday, those who fought for their rights and against AIDS and its stigmatization. The legacy referred to in the title is “that of history, community and self.”
In recent months we have lost two people to whom we owe a lot. Montse Guillén lived in New York in the 1980s and suffered the loss of many of her friends. One of them, Keith Haring, had her help in managing the permits and finding a location in Barcelona for the mural Tots junts podem parar la sida (Together we can stop AIDS) (1989). Miralda’s partner and accomplice, Montse Guillén made a unique contribution with her way of linking culinary innovation with artistic creativity. With Miralda they created the restaurant El Internacional in New York and the FoodCultura project, a visionary proposal that explores the interrelationships between cuisine, art and science, and that collects, archives and activates aspects of human identities, rituals and culinary traditions. Montse was an active, energetic, laughing person and always ready to embark on new adventures.
Just a few weeks later, Antoni Mercader, a pioneer of multimedia art in our country and member of the Grup de Treball, where he met Muntadas, among others, also left us. He was co-author, together with Eugeni Bonet, of the first book on video art published in Spain: En torno al vídeo (1980). For a couple of years, he was in charge of the Dilluns de Vídeo in La Virreina, programming representative tapes of the evolution of the medium. He played a key role in defining the Mediateca de la Caixa, directed by Carme Garrido, conceived as a large accessible archive that focused on the social use of new media. But, above all, Antoni Mercader was a generous person who shared his experience and knowledge while building bridges between generations of artists, critics and curators.
The generations that came after us, and also those that have come —and will come— after us, owe an immense debt to Montse Guillén and Antoni Mercader. For them, for Montse and Antoni, we are left with a deep feeling of esteem, homage and, above all, gratitude.
There is frequent discussion around how different players in the art ecosystem are redefining their roles and working models. Hauser & Wirth stands out in this regard—not only as one of the most influential galleries on the global art scene, but also for how it has developed each of its spaces in distinct ways, incorporating elements of environment and well-being that enrich the experience for collectors, clients, and visitors alike. Hauser & Wirth Menorca is a prime example, bringing together nature, sustainability, and a certain sense of exclusivity.
But this is not the time to analyze gallery models. Rather, we turn to the two exhibitions currently on view at this unique venue—solo shows by two artists with firmly established careers: Mika Rottenberg and Cindy Sherman.
Cindy Sherman. The Women
Encountering Cindy Sherman’s work is always noteworthy—especially considering that her last solo exhibition in Spain took place back in 1996 at the Museo Nacional – Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid, co-organized with the Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum in Rotterdam.
On this occasion, The Women brings together a compelling selection of works created between the 1970s and 2010s. Among them are some of her most iconic series, such as Untitled Film Stills (1977–1980), where Sherman stages fictional film stills that evoke the nouvelle vague, 1960s French cinema, Italian neorealism, and even Hitchcock.
This is the only series to which Sherman has assigned a title. As she explains in a documentary produced by Art21—screened as part of the exhibition—she generally avoids titling her works, feeling she isn’t particularly skilled at it and preferring instead to leave room for ambiguity and multiple interpretations. The show in Menorca also includes early pieces from her student years, already foreshadowing the aesthetic and conceptual approach of Untitled Film Stills. In these early images—as in much of her work—Sherman uses makeup, wigs, masks, and costumes, performing as model, director, and photographer by triggering the camera herself from within the scene. Also featured are selections from the Murder Series, where she embodies mysterious, everyday characters that anticipate some of the figures later seen in her commercial film Office Killer (1997).
The heart of the exhibition, however, lies in her later explorations of women—middle-aged, from diverse social and economic backgrounds—placed in enigmatic settings. Sometimes these are dramatic, painterly landscapes that starkly contrast with the haute couture garments worn by the characters (in collaboration with Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar); other times, the works rely on layered compositions and double exposures.
The series informally known as The Flappers revisits different archetypes of women from the 1920s, ’30s and ’40s—figures who embodied empowerment and a desire to modernize society. These works also introduce themes of aging and the passage of time. One of the highlights of the documentary mentioned before shows Sherman in her studio, where she reveals drawers filled with dental prosthetics, ocular accessories, and masks. We also see her enthusiastically thrift-shopping for outfits—animal prints, sequins, and all manner of glittery attire—which often inspire the emergence of new photographic characters.
Her ongoing investigation into identity construction through self-representation—a central theme of her practice—feels particularly prescient in today’s era of social media, especially Instagram. Fittingly, one can find the cindyshermanlegacyproject on that very platform—an initiative by Hauser & Wirth devoted to preserving her photographs and ensuring the longevity of her artistic legacy.
Mika Rottenberg. Vibrant Matter
Mika Rottenberg’s Vibrant Matter blurs the line between reality and fiction to explore post-capitalist life systems and how they shape our existence. Her immersive installations and video works often confront viewers with absurd mechanisms of labor, production, and consumption. Two major pieces featured in the show are Cosmic Generator (2017)—first presented at Skulptur Projekte Münster—and Spaghetti Blockchain (2019).
Cosmic Generator weaves together real and imaginary scenes linking distant places such as Mexico, California, and a plastic goods market in China. Spaghetti Blockchain, meanwhile, focuses on materials—from raw substances to artificial textures, or the tiniest particles documented during a research stay at CERN. This three-channel video installation includes a meticulously crafted soundscape, incorporating everything from plastic ball manipulation and ASMR-style effects to traditional Siberian throat singing, generating immersive connections to both space and nature.
This sonic dimension also enriches the visit to her latest installation, Lampshares (2024–2025), in which Rottenberg transforms her New York studio into a kind of circular economy. Created in collaboration with Inner City Green Team and Gary Dusek, this series of lamps is made from invasive vines gathered in upstate New York and recycled plastic sourced from local dumpsters. In doing so, Rottenberg builds functional sculptures from materials often considered waste or toxic. Yet these substances, derived from petroleum, originate from once-living organisms millions of years ago. By repurposing such detritus, the artist performs a gesture of transformation—redefining the negative connotations of these materials and postponing their environmental impact through renewed utility.
Cindy Sherman. The Women y Mika Rottenberg. Vibrant Matter are on view at Hauser & Wirth Menorca through 26 October 2025.
Montse Badía
