Between rivers and seas. A geography of memory

This exhibition that I am presenting at the Academy of Fine Arts unfolds in two selections of works that meet and dialogue with each other. Each piece is a fragment of an intimate landscape, where memories, lived territories and imaginary territories converge.

Between rivers and seas, shapes and colors draw an emotional cartography, a meeting place between personal and collective memory. On the one hand, there is my connection with the land between rivers—Mesopotamia—and the mythical texts of the Poem of Creation. This space, located between desert and water, between origin and word, has been, over time, a constant source of inspiration. It was in the nineties when I had the opportunity to physically step foot in these places, to bathe my feet in them and to look them in the eyes. Then, Mesopotamia took on a more tangible form, closer, more mine.

On the other hand, the Mediterranean, a horizon that has always accompanied me, but which in recent years has exploded with new intensity. I have delved into its roots, its historical periods, its changing cartographies. It has been a search for its origins, its poets, cartographers and thinkers, and also an exploration of my own experience —both physical and symbolic— around this sea that is, at the same time, limit, memory and desire. The origin of all of this comes from afar. The first works that I made about the Mediterranean have as their starting point the poems and writings of Salvador Espriu, who, in the eighties, opened my symbolic and poetic door to this sea —a space of memory and resistance. Over time, stays in Kato Zakros, in Crete, deepened this connection even further, bringing an intimate dimension to my work. From these experiences, pieces were born that capture the dialogue between landscape, words and the boat, also inspired by the legacy and poetry of Ausiàs March.

I especially remember a series of pieces that interwoven poems by Ausiàs March with verses by Hafez of Shiraz. Both, medieval poets of almost the same age —one Catalan and the other Persian— became for me bridges between cultures and languages. I integrated fragments of them —rewritten by me by hand— into the works, making their words dialogue with the image. In some pieces, I also incorporated poems by Hafez rewritten by hand and in Persian by Behjat Mahdavi. As my artistic journey progressed, it was enriched with knowledge of the past and with the search for people and periods —both from one shore and the other of the Mediterranean— that opened paths of creation and encounter. My canvases, maps, writings and images reflect this knowledge acquired along the way.

This work especially includes the study and representation of the ancient and medieval periods of the Mediterranean, where the past resonates strongly and intertwines with the questions of the present. It is, therefore, a journey through this shared space and sea, with an open gaze towards its shores, its landscapes and the thought that has pulsed there throughout a common history. A journey that invites us to reflection, to dialogue between cultures and to the shared experience that, despite the distance, continues to resonate within us.

In this exhibition I also include an artist's book made in collaboration with Josep Maria Ripoll. His poetic text and my visual work dialogue in an open debate about the Mediterranean, its contradictions and our experiences. A shared exercise at a time when it is necessary to deepen understanding and mutual recognition between cultures.

Assunció Oristrell