DÉJÀ VECÚ, WHAT HAS ALREADY BEEN LIVE
2024 / Individual Exhibition / Curated by Andrea Pacheco González / Exhibition design by Diogo Pasarihno Studio / CA2M, Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo
Déjà Vécu, what has already been lived is the artist’s first solo show at a public institution in the Community of Madrid, and bears witness to an intense process of research carried out over the last five years, in which the artist and curator have critically reviewed a series of historical narratives, cultural hierarchies, and collective identity constructs in the Iberian Peninsula. The work of Asunción Molinos Gordo is born of an interest in nature, and in a range of media closely tied to ecology and the organic, including textiles, ceramics and wood. Almost all her artistic outputinvolves research conducted in situ in connection with rural contexts, where, as explained by curator Andrea Pacheco González, “she carries out eclectic field work ranging from microbiology to divination.” Pacheco adds that the group of installations, the majority of which were created specifically for this show, “address the urgency of grasping the fact that history and culture are not fixed or pure entities, but rather are configured out of a myriad of diverse elements that overlap, fuse together and hybridize as naturally as the very chemical and physical processes that sustain life on earth.”
The exhibition, which took form on the second floor of the Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo in Madrid, was composed of eight installations, many of which were specially conceived for the exhibition.
The eight works featured in the exhibition curated by Andrea Pacheco González were: Frotagge (2024), Mil Leches (2024), Los Antiguos (2024), Sin comienzo ni fin, con lagunas interiores (2024), Omar e Ismael, Ismael y Omar (2024), Sílex (2024), Quórum Sensing (2023), and Dunia, Mulk, Yabarut (2019)
SÍLEX
DUNIA, MULK, YABARUT
FROTAGGE
OMAR E ISMAEL, ISMAEL Y OMAR
MIL LECHES
SIN COMIENZO NI FIN, CON LAGUNAS INTERIORES
QUORUM SENSING
LOS ANTIGUOS
Sílex, 2024
Flint carving, collected from the place where the flint was extracted for the Arab wall of Madrid
Variable dimensions
The Arab wall of Madrid is mostly built with flint, a sedimentary rock formed by silica minerals such as quartz. In its solidification process, flint accumulates and compacts a series of microorganisms and incorporates preceding rocks; in other words, it is a geological element that arises from hybridization and mutability. Flint is known as the stone of fire, not only because it generates sparks on impact with another hard material, but also because it is capable of resisting extreme temperatures without deforming. This property, among others, has made it a fundamental element for data storage in technological memory devices. According to recent research into 5D technology (optical data storage in five dimensions), the thermal stability and resistance of quartz crystals would allow the stored information to last thirteen billion years - the age of the universe - if the temperature to which they are exposed does not exceed 190 degrees Celsius.
The sculpture that welcomes visitors to the exhibition was made with flint nodules extracted from the same geographical area where the rocks of the Arab wall of the city come from. Its morphology is inspired by some of the pieces exhibited in the San Isidro Museum -the museum of the origins of Madrid-. But, in the rooms of the CA2M, this rock suggests the possibility of storing another kind of data, an extra-patrimonial information. Like a pre-technological geological device, a macro hard disk, these flint stones could preserve the collective memory of the place to which they belong, including also the mutilations and erasures to which they have been subjected. Among the minerals and sediments that make it up could be stored the life that has passed here. How to access it?
Fotografía: Roberto Ruiz.
Frottage, 2024
Graphite drawing on paper
Frottage technique on the Arab wall of Madrid
100 x 70 cm (each drawing)
The drawings displayed in this room were made with the frottage technique on the remains of the Arab wall of Maŷrīṭ, the original name of Madrid, the only one of the current European capitals that has an Islamic origin, founded by the emir Mohamed I between the years 853 and 865. As a way of symbolically accessing the memory of that city, for several weeks the artist gathered a group of Spanish artists of Maghrebi origin to rub the wall with charcoal and paper. In this way, the images presented in this exhibition sprouted from the wall in the form of codices or manuscripts from other fields of knowledge. They are not texts, but they contain a wealth of information; their lines and sinuous forms speak of a previous city, of its water currents, of the rocky mountains that surrounded it, of the sparks, of the fire. “Over water built, my walls of fire are”, reads what seems to be the first emblem of the city, alluding to the subway waters and streams that ran through the territory and the flint, stone that allows making fire and with which the wall is mostly built.
By reviewing more than three hundred drawings hung in the room, the confluence of their lines, their organic prints, it is possible to imagine forms of coexistence, exchanges, entrances and exits, diverse movements of a city that has been above all a place of connection. For this project, the Arab wall of Madrid was transformed into an authentic portal. The graphic landscape presented by these drawings emerges like a flow from the wall of the ancient city. The artist and her collaborators have only been the channel of the manifestation or, in Vinciane Despret's words, of the establishment of this work on paper.
Dunia, Mulk, Yabarut, 2019
Sculpture
Bronze, olive wood, ceramic, and bone
170 × 50 cm
This piece is a reinterpretation of the yamur, an element of Islamic architecture that was widespread across the Iberian Peninsula during the Andalusi period. The yamur consists of a vertical metal rod into which three spherical forms—usually made of copper or bronze—are inserted, the largest at the base, decreasing in size upward. Much like the cross atop Christian temples, the yamur crowns the highest point of mosques and holds an apotropaic function: an ornamental amulet warding off natural and supernatural misfortunes. Its protective qualities are tied to its divine symbolism. When composed of three spheres, they are said to represent the three realms through which the Islamic divinity is revealed: dunia, mulk, and yabarut—the earthly, celestial, and spiritual.
Remnants of ancient yamurs have survived into the present, and can still be found across Spain. Often, they were fused with Christian church crosses or repurposed as weather vanes or lightning rods, becoming biographical witnesses to the layered cultural histories of cities. The later placement of lightning rods atop yamurs created a visual accumulation of forms that reveals the recurrence of these three elements (earthly, celestial, and spiritual) through grounding, atmosphere, and electric current. This overlap signals a synchronicity between religious and scientific worldviews through the use of similar protective devices. Perched atop ecclesiastical buildings, as a recurring, multi-layered amulet, the yamur also becomes a witness to the merging of cosmovisions that shape the cultural identity of a place.
Omar and Ismael, Ismael and Omar, 2024
Sculpture
Mixed media
400 x 80 cm
This sculpture takes the form of a foundational column that connects sky and earth, allegorically linking the human and the divine, the material and the spiritual. Its structure reproduces fragments from temples and both secular and religious buildings to, on one hand, reclaim the refinement of peasant cultures, which have been insufficiently acknowledged by Western thought. On the other, the piece celebrates one of the most extraordinary expressions of the diversity of thought once present on the Iberian Peninsula: multi-faith temples—or as they are known today, multiconfessional temples—dedicated to contemplation and prayer across different belief systems.
The central body of the sculpture is composed of a distorted and unrecognizable collection of architectural fragments that have been uprooted, mutilated, or delegitimized over the past five centuries. Among them, the artist reproduces Romanesque corbels and capitals depicting erotic and sexual scenes, such as those found in the church of San Miguel de Fuentidueña in Ayllón; a fragment of the capital from the synagogue of Santa María la Blanca in Toledo; a fragment from the dovecote of La Breña in San Ambrosio; and an epigraphic inscription from the wall of the synagogue of Córdoba, featuring a Hebrew excerpt from the Song of Songs:
«Soy trigueña, pero hermosa. No me miréis con desprecio: si yo soy morena es porque el sol me quemó. ¡Despierta, viento del norte, y acércate, viento del sur!».
"‘I am dark’?, but lovely. Do not look down on me because I am dark: the sun has tanned me. Awake, north wind, and come, south wind!"
The upper part of the sculpture is crowned by the reproduction of a palm tree—a sacred tree in both the Bible and the Qur’an—inspired by the one found inside the hermitage of San Baudelio, in Casillas de Berlanga. This hermitage was built in the 11th century by Mozarabic artisans in what was then considered no man's land, lying on the border between the Caliphate of Córdoba and the Kingdom of León. According to legend, Omar and Ismael were two young men—one Christian, the other Muslim—called by their respective faiths to build a temple that could unite people of different religions in a shared space, “a temple that would house, in a kind of spiritual and aesthetic mestizaje, the soul and essence of their cultures.” Today, there is no certainty as to whether it was originally a church or a mosque, as it bears architectural elements of both. It may well have been built as a multi-faith temple or embody centuries of syncretism, much like the yamur.
Mil Leches, 2024
Felt made from the wool of all sheep breeds in the Spanish State
Four-channel video installation in loop
Variable dimensions
Mil Leches originated in Mutur Beltz (Karrantza, Biscay), where the artist undertook a residency to study the category of "breed" as applied to sheep, specifically the Carranzana black-faced sheep. The findings of this research led to the conclusion that, much like with humans, sheep breeds do not exist scientifically. They have been created as tools for the economic exploitation of living beings, within what some scholars define as racial capitalism. The title of the piece refers to a common insult in Spain used to describe people of diverse—therefore “impure”—backgrounds. Blood purity became radically important in the 17th century, when it became necessary to prove “pure old Christian blood”—free of Jewish or Muslim ancestry—in order to travel to the Americas from the port of Seville. Beyond being a social fantasy within a borderland territory, biological blood purity is an anomaly. In the case of sheep and other mammals, limited genetic mixing among varieties with different physical traits leads to genetic impoverishment, resulting in weaker, more vulnerable animals. Blood purity is inversely proportional to the animal’s survival capacity. In contrast, hybridization brings genetic richness, producing more resilient animals with greater adaptability to changing environmental conditions.
At the heart of this project is the choice of sheep wool as a material that prompts reflection on human coexistence in a present where the defense of “pure” identities once again occupies the center of radical political discourse. The sheep holds strong symbolic weight. It is a sacred animal in all three monotheistic religions and has been sacrificed in numerous peoples and cultures. The sheep is one of the most docile creatures in the animal kingdom, among the first to be domesticated. Its history of exploitation is as long as that of human greed. It was a fundamental colonial tool in the expansion of both the Spanish and British empires. In the Iberian Peninsula, during the expulsion of Muslims and the occupation of overseas colonies, flocks of sheep were used to establish territorial presence without human settlements, while land and resources were being exploited. In regions such as Patagonia in Chile and Argentina, the introduction of the sheep farming industry led to the displacement—and even genocide—of entire Indigenous communities, such as the Selk’nam in Tierra del Fuego.
Known as “Spanish white gold,” wool reached the first modern stock exchange in Amsterdam in the 17th century. This wool came exclusively from Merino sheep, a breed resulting from the crossbreeding of native Iberian sheep with North African sheep introduced by the Marinids. The word merina derives from the Banu Marin, a nomadic tribe from the eastern Maghreb. Despite its enormous historical, economic, and symbolic value—in some Muslim traditions, it is said that the heart of God is made of wool—today it represents only 1% of the fibers we wear. In Europe, it is considered hazardous agricultural waste and is often incinerated in landfills and outskirts.
In this exhibition, wool is above all a source of knowledge. The videos accompanying the textile piece document the various processes the collected material underwent—nearly a ton of wool from sheep across the Iberian Peninsula. As it moved through washing, drying, and fabric-making machines, the wool displayed different behaviors. At times it resembled water, snow, or steam. Its movement transformed it into a waterfall, a river current, or a whirlpool, establishing a direct connection with the mutable—what is constantly in flux. Like culture or collective identity, the fabric that gives form to this piece is nourished by the strength and beauty of mixing. As with most works, the dynamic and versatile nature of the Mil Leches textile offers an allegory of human social life.
Quorum Sensing, 2023
Blown glass in wooden and mirror display cases
Variable dimensions
From the Latin quorum (sufficient presence or majority) and the English sensing (sensation or perception), this work derives from the project In Transit (Botany of a Journey), a garden created by the artist for the Jameel Arts Centre using seeds that survive intestinal transit. The project began with wastewater processed at the Al Aweer treatment plant, which receives sewage from Dubai Airport, where thousands of people from different origins pass through every day. Each person carries their own gut flora, their own bacteria, and the seeds of the fruits and vegetables native to the region they inhabit.
Several samples of this sludge were analyzed by gut microbiologist Ruqaiyyah Siddiqui in the laboratories of the American University of Sharjah. In the research on how bacteria interact, a series of behavioral patterns were identified: commensal, mutualistic, parasitic, cheating, etc. However, cooperation is the form of relationship that most consistently prevails in bacterial life. It is what microbiologists call quorum sensing, a mode of collective sensing—an amalgam of chemical signals that bacteria use to recognize themselves as part of a community, adapt to changes, and avoid unnecessary competition. A fundamental pattern in the bacterial world is the coexistence of all its members: either they all live, or none do.
In its exhibition display, the Quorum Sensing installation adopts the form of Petri dishes—cylindrical containers used to study and culture microorganisms—through a series of circular vitrines of various sizes. Inside these cases, which also resemble sections of the intestine, we find a collection of blown glass pieces representing the bacterial cultures and their relational behavior during the study. Their morphology suggests those patterns of social conduct that generate tensions, struggles, alliances, or forms of adaptation to change.
Sin comienzo ni fin, con lagunas interiores, 2024
Fifty cow scapulae with engraved texts
Variable dimensions
Mutilated at the beginning, untitled and without author, damp stains, mutilated at the end, undated, unbound, with the binding detached, very disordered, incorrect foliation, water damage, headless, incomplete and disordered, loose and unfoliated pages, headless, anonymous, without beginning or end, several folios gnawed, margins mutilated, faded and blurry annotations, slightly gnawed pages, incomplete and disordered, affected by humidity, patched binding, without title or author, headless and anonymous, gnawed and unbound pages, detached binding, somewhat gnawed leaves, damaged by woodworm, patched pages, missing folios, without beginning or end, with internal gaps, also mutilated at the end, headless and incomplete, anonymous and untitled, anonymous without beginning or end, anonymous and incomplete, mutilated, with gaps and no end, fragment without beginning or end, paginated in reverse.
This text reproduces various descriptions of the deteriorated state of Arabic manuscripts and documents currently held in the Royal Library of the Monastery of San Lorenzo de El Escorial. The painting Fire at the Monastery of El Escorial in 1671 (anonymous, 17th century) dramatically portrays the flames that devastated the architectural complex, including the library, destroying nearly half of the five thousand Arabic manuscripts on theology, history, law, medicine, grammar, astrology, “Mohammedan superstition,” and “Moorish ceremonies,” as some records note. The artist retrieves these technical conservation reports and engraves them in Arabic on this set of cow scapulae.
The choice of bones references the alifatos—Arabic alphabets inscribed on bone—found in various archaeological excavations in the Iberian Peninsula. The alifato, or Arabic alphabet, was incised into large bones to create tablets used in Andalusi madrasas to teach calligraphy and introduce writing. These were everyday objects, designed to endure frequent use, and their durability surpassed that of paper—engraved on bone, they resisted erasure. While most were austere and unadorned, some alifatos discovered in excavations bore the engraved Star of Solomon, also imbuing them with a protective role as amulets or talismans.
The phrase "without beginning or end, with inner gaps" reveals the inverse of the learning process initiated by the alifatos. The work points to the ignorance born from the loss, desecration, or mutilation—whether intentional or accidental—of the body of knowledge contained in the Arabic manuscript collection begun by Philip II at El Escorial. These bodies of knowledge form part of a shared intellectual heritage, born of cultural exchange and hybridization, which, sadly, can now only be accessed in fragmented form. The cow bones also evoke bodies as vessels of knowledge that have been lost, fragmented, and thus silenced. The bones remain as witnesses to disappearance
Los Antiguos, 2024
Sculpture
Mixed media, clay and straw
Variable dimensions
This series of sculptures, dispersed throughout the exhibition rooms, replicates the nests that swallows build to shelter after migrating from one continent to another. The barn swallow is a species that, with the arrival of winter, travels from Europe to sub-Saharan Africa, and returns in the spring. Its migratory nature resonates with human movements—both forced and voluntary—that accompany life on this planet. By recreating their dwellings, the work highlights the admirable sense of belonging of these birds: their small shelters do not serve an individual, but rather the community to which they belong. A testament to this is that, when the summer season ends, the swallows leave, yet their nests remain. These are transtemporal refuges, capable of holding shared pasts within our vast diversity.
The swallows’ passage across geographies and cultures, throughout all stages of history, has made them protagonists of an interlinked chain of myths that associate them with the transition from life to death, liminal states, reincarnation, change, or transformation. Embracing these beliefs, The Ancients also evokes the dwelling place of those who are no longer here—those who came before us and whose spirit continues to inhabit the spaces of the living.
INVOCATIONS
Whenever I give my daughter a present, she always asks me to hide it first, so we can play ‘hot and cold.’ For her, and for many of us, the feat of the search is just as important as the act of finding. This is how Andrea and I have approached this project, sharing in the excitement of the quest and the thrill of the find. The collection of images shown below could belong to the chain of messages we’ve sent back and forth through out these years of research and production. It’s an amalgam of places, people, events, historical references, situations, production processes, coincidences, anecdotes and encounters, strung together through serendipity as we’ve played the game of finding that which was hidden.This is why it’s so important in this publication to share the images that have accompanied us along the way, in hopes that they might arouse in others a similar hunger for the search. Every artistic practice begins with contagion. This contagion is followed by a call, an invocation through which one gives a name to that which they want to know. Many words have come up in our search: mutualism, heritage, memory, crossbreeding, diversity, legacy, erasure, sum, loss. Each of these words has led to another: wool, breed, race, scouring, waste water, wall, stone, flint, microorganism, coexistence, al-Andalus... And their echoes have in turn taken us to places as far-flung as the Mantexman wool scouring plant in Mota del Cuervo, the chapel-mosque of San Baudelio in Soria, the wastewater treatment plant in Dubai, the laboratory of the American University of Sharjah, the bridge over the Tagus at Puente del Arzobispo, the Museo Geominero in Madrid, the Royal Library of the Monastery of San Lorenzo de El Escorial, the Arab walls of Majrit, the Museo de San Isidro in Madrid, the Palomar de la Breña dovecot, the chapel of San Ambrosio, the synagogues of Córdoba and Toledo, Cairo’s City of the Dead, the Shepherd’s House in Tauste, the Arab cistern beneath the Museo de Cáceres, the Albero i Sempere textile factory in Banyeres de Mariola, the Fundación Montenmedio Contemporánea in Vejer de la Frontera, Mutur Beltz in Carranza Valley, Museo Vostell in Malpartida de Cáceres, San Miguel de Fuentidueña, Medina Azahara, and an empty lot in Vallecas.
In these fields, you reap what you sow.
