We want a change
Play with fire
Visual identity and installation for the “Playing with Fire” exhibition at the Rural Life Museum.
“Fire illuminates, fertilizes, purges and purifies. Fire regenerates, sublimates. But it also devours, burns, consumes and destroys: it is war, the apocalypse, eternal damnation, the great threat.“
The exhibition Playing with fire, organized and produced by the Museum of Rural Life of the Carulla Foundation and the Pau Costa Foundation, aims to challenge the visitor and reflect on the current management of forests and, in turn, the rural areas. The intention is to deepen the ecology of fire, generate knowledge around forest fires and reflect on climate change and the sustainability of the current relationship between fire and people.
Client: Museum of Rural Life
Year: 2020
When I was asked to do the design for the Museum’s new temporary exhibition “playing with fire” I connected with the last fire in the Ribera d’Ebre that started in one of the worst environmental and meteorological scenarios that can be remembered in the country, with a sustained drought, temperatures of up to 51o and gusts of wind favorable to the creation of a large fire that burned 5,000 hectares.
For this reason, and with the search for how to transform the remains left by a fire, I ventured to transform the burnt organic matter of the fire into pigment to give it a new life.
In this way, while the texts in the room explain and accompany you on the journey through the works of great artists, the remains left by the fire are present and they are the ones who speak.
For the black background we used barbecue scraps that gave us the gray/white colour.
Regrowth is the installation I prepared for the exhibition surrounded by others such as Joan Brossa, Josep Guinovart, Josep Ribot, Kevin Sake, Lucas Hope, Joan Miró, Francesc Català-Roca, Maties Palau Ferré, Chema Madoz, Oliver Laxe, Marta Pruna, Jordi Font Recasens and Josep Bou.
At the time of the investigation, I asked my firefighter friends what impressed them the most and they all agreed that it was the silence left by the fire. This was my starting point to prepare the tunnel in which I wanted to achieve this moment of enquiring silence where all the senses are on alert and it does not leave you indifferent.
El Rebrotar reflects on the transformation that fire leaves in its wake, but at the same time suggests that after destruction there is always light and life reappears.
Making off of the assembly week. All the room texts are painted by hand with the help of Mireia Domènech and Silvia Yruela.
Poster image of Chema Madoz.
