Francesca Poza. Courtesy of the artist.

ARTE & PALABRA. CONVERSATIONS WITH CARLOS DEL AMOR

Thread is one of the most seemingly fragile materials in existence, yet a combination of threads can be indestructible. It is the triumph of fragility over brute force.

Among its many virtues, thread has its meaning, both real and imagined. It is a word that oozes poetry and makes us think of following a trail, sometimes infinite. Francesca Poza (Mataró, 1965) adds the written word to the many virtues of thread, giving her works a firmness that is always delicate but almost impossible to break. She weaves between letters and memory, pieces that seek to establish what has been lived, to leave a trace in a world that is increasingly ephemeral, more fleeting, more liquid, more elusive. In his work, poetry, literature and time intertwine in a harmonious way, resulting in creations of beautiful originality that are as subtle as they are powerful.

Perhaps Francesca has managed to give an answer to what Carmen Laforet wondered in "Nada", when she said: Who can understand the thousand threads that unite the souls of men and the reach of their words?

The poet reborn. Fabric made with book paper. 2023.

If you had to define yourself as an artist, in one sentence, how would you define yourself?

I could define myself as a multidisciplinary artist who poetizes matter.

The thread even predates the advent of writing, perhaps it's not exact, but I like to think that it began to "write" by spinning... Then came the written word, and in this encounter full of history and ancestors is your work. Spun words, sounds good, doesn't it?

Spun words sound good, the subtlety of the thread that organizes time, the connection, the continuity, the rhythm of literature without reading, because it is a very recurrent phrase in my work, that as the weft is made and unmade, the work and the poetry reappear.

As if they were chains. Fabric made with book paper. 2023.

Why does everyone say that you are unclassifiable? Don't you think we live for labels? It's nice to be difficult to classify. Do you feel like a "freak"?

No, I don't feel like a freak. I like the fact that I am unclassifiable. It's difficult to define me as a sculptor, an engraver, or a weaver. I try to make poetry with the material I have, to make the fragile speak to us, to transport us; the paper as matter and the thread as symbol, to penetrate us.

When one stops in front of your work one has two sensations, well three, one of tranquility, the other two are paradoxical because the first impression is one of fragility, however, after a while you realize that these "threads" are strong because they are united and have made common cause. It's a bit like so many things in life, isn't it?

Yes, that's really what I'm looking for, to express peace and tranquility above all. We are going through very difficult times and I like to express the good that people have inside us.

Testament of Oscar Wilde. Fabric made with book paper. 2023.

Memory is an intimate territory that sometimes betrays us, and forgetting is its main enemy. Is your work against forgetting?

Yes, the art of remembering and forgetting is a recurring theme in my work, because I had and still have the idea that we have to be something, that something has to remain in our memory. So I try to create a poetics that is embodied in different aspects of creativity. You could say that this essence of a series of needs, of leaving a permanent record, is because we don't want to be forgotten, and this is a way I have of expressing myself.

Your work is very poetic... What do you think is impossible to poeticise?

There is nothing impossible, nothing that cannot be poeticised. And yes, my work is poetic, why weave, what for? Poetry and weaving travel in the imagination and come together. Visual art, manual art, in short: poetry.

Music of broken windows.Hahnemühle paper 300gr. 2023.

The thread leaves a trace, the words leave a trace... Your work leaves a trace. Where do you want it to go?

Words leave traces and I want my work to leave traces: the feelings and sensations of the viewer. That the work of art is not just for decoration, but something that when you wake up in the morning, you look at it and you feel different again, that it leaves you with something to feel.

Where do you think your work is going?

My work itself, I don't know where it's going, it leads the way, it guides me day after day. I would like to be able to continue weaving poems that travel in the imagination, to enter and leave through the multiple paths that the material and the feelings take me.

RAÍCES AFUERA. PERFORMANCE CYCLE X ART MADRID'25

Art Madrid celebrates twenty years of contemporary art from March 5 to 9, 2025, at the Galería de Cristal of the Palacio de Cibeles. During Art Week, it becomes an exhibition platform for national and international galleries and artists. In this edition, with the aim of providing a space for artists working in the realm of performance art, the fair presents Raíces Afuera, a performance cycle that explores notions of belonging and the need for rootedness in a contemporary world marked by fragmentation, displacement, and disconnection. Positioned within the fair as a critical and reflective space, the project challenges the individual’s relationship with their environment, community, and sense of identity.

PERFORMANCE: EL PESO DE LA CIUDAD LO LLEVO CONMIGO. BY AGUSTINA PALAZZO

March 9 | 17:00h. Galería de Cristal of the Palacio de Cibeles.

El peso de la ciudad lo lleco conmigo. Agustina Palazzo. Peformance documentacion. 2025.

The current urban landscape represents an environment saturated with symbols of modernity and technological “progress.” The television and radio antennas, which hover over rooftops, embody much more than their technical function. They emerge as markers of change, connecting generations to a global world, transforming urban life into a web of communication and entertainment.

This modification of the urban landscape has direct implications for the contemporary body, a body defined and altered through technology and its relationship with the environment. As Laura Barros Condés says in Habitar(se), “Technology has become an intrinsic part of individuals, largely through the body.”

Space itself is an organism that intervenes in the body. We experience an environment through the body, and inevitably, this relationship influences our way of connecting physically and psychologically, as well as the process of constructing identity. The body is defined and altered through its relationship with the environment.

The antennas, these inanimate objects that hover over the urban landscape, represent a powerful metaphor for an era saturated by technological mediation. Their abundant presence points to the paradox of connectivity that, while promising to unite us, fragments our attention and collective experience. As unnoticed monuments, they invite us to reflect on how technology redefines cities and our relationship with them.

El peso de la ciudad lo llevo conmigo seeks to make visible contemporary oppression—how industrialization, urbanization, and digitalization condition the construction of identity, stripping individuals of a vital connection and leaving an existential void in a body that inhabits the saturation of the urban landscape.

Radiorator II. Performance documentation. 2025. Agustina Palazzo.

ABOUT AGUSTINA PALAZZO

Agustina Palazzo (Córdoba, Argentina, 1992) is a multidisciplinary artist from Córdoba, Argentina. Based in Barcelona, her practice spans art, education, and cultural management within the context of the digital world and new technologies. Her work oscillates between the critical and the poetic, using emerging themes and technologies as creative tools in performance, sound design, and installation. Her artistic research is nourished by the relationship between communication, human behavior, and new technologies, creating experiences that question the boundaries of human behavior and the digital realm. She has participated in solo and group exhibitions, festivals, and residencies across Latin America and Europe. Some of her notable engagements include IMMERSIVA at Espronceda, Institute of Art and Culture (ES), Tsonami Sound Art (CHILE), Rake Community, art and research platform (UK), SONAR + D (ES), LLUM (ES), Teorema (ES), 220 Contemporary Culture (AR), Millesuoni (IT), Espai 19 (ES), among others.

Agustina Palazzo's work focuses on human behavior, desires, and misunderstandings, exploring the contradictions of the contemporary crowd caught between technological refinement and moral erosion in fragmented attention spans. It swings between the critical and the poetic, inspired by science fiction, utopia, and dystopia, but with an emotional sensitivity anchored in the present. Her practice moves across performance, installation, video, sound, and archive, using technology not only as a tool but as a symbol of a social and political condition.

Taking advantage of its poetic dimension, she blends digital and analog techniques with everyday objects, stretching their meanings. Sound and radio are recurring elements in her quest, but her language is expansive, crossing through the visual, performative, and sonic. Experimentation, process, and critical reflection are the core of her practice, inviting the viewer to question their relationship with the digital and the real.