Exhibition: “NOMADIC PRACTICES 2023-25”

Sala URIBITARTE40 is providing the venue for the exhibition Nomadic Practices 2023-25, a collective exhibition of work by artists Juana García-Pozuelo, Harald Gmeiner, Helena Guy Lhomme, Victor Ortuño, Caterina Morigi, Javier R. Peréz-Curiel, Saray Pérez Castilla and Matteo Vettorello. The exhibition runs from 26 September to 9 November.

NOMADIC PRACTICES 2023-25 is a collective exhibition featuring the artists Juana García-Pozuelo, Harald Gmeiner, Helena Guy Lhomme, Victor Ortuño, Caterina Morigi, Javier R. Peréz-Curiel, Saray Pérez Castilla, and Matteo Vettorello. The project incorporates the work these eight artists produced during their residencies between 2023 and 2025 as part of the international mobility and exchange programme promoted by BilbaoArte in collaboration with Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa (Venice, Italy), Kunsthaus Bregenz (Bregenz, Austria), and JAD Le Jardin des métiers d’Art et du Design (Paris, France).

Developed with the support of Bilbao City Council, and in collaboration with the Otaola Ubieta Family, this programme enables selected artists to undertake stays of varying durations at art centres across Europe, promoting interconnection between artists, institutions, and cultural contexts in Bilbao (Basque Country) – Bregenz (Austria) – Paris (France) – Venice (Italy).

Art production centres are noted for providing time, spaces and resources for artistic projects in the contexts in which they are rolled out. Such experiences – drawing on practice, exchange, reflection and working together with different specialists, artists and cultural agents – contribute to the professional development and promotion of the artists on the programme. Accordingly, BilbaoArte has agreements and collaborations in place with other European artistic production centres, with the same goals and purposes, and which enable the exchange of artists in residence between their centres.

The exhibition’s title, Nomadic Practices, precisely captures the essence of the artist exchange programme; it highlights the active and practical nature of the artists’ work during their residencies, which is focused on the creative processes and the practical work at each location. In turn, it keeps the sense of mobility and travel, reflecting the artists moving between Bilbao, Paris, Bregenz and Venice; that not only evokes a spirit of exploring and learning, but it also allows the artists and institutions to collaborate and network to interweave ideas, cultures and inspiration.

The project overall brings together a set of works that address different themes and lines of research through languages and forms of expression, such as sculpture, video, sound installation and painting. And the influence of the practical work, techniques, learning and of the context in which they have been produced can be clearly seen.

The projects and lines of research include the depiction of suburban housing in the United States or the aesthetic dominance of US audiovisual production and its influence on the western collective imagination through the painting of Juana García-Pozuelo; the exploration of the notions and interpretations of the human being as regards the environments in which they live – in this case the city of Bilbao – and their transfer to large paintings in the case of Harald Gmeiner; the production of items and elements made out of Merina wool as a means of raising awareness and questioning the ways in which the human species adopts a stance as regards other living beings by Héléna Guy Lhomme; biomedical research on the exoskeletons of marine beings (such as shells and sea urchins) as open research that merges the micro and macro, and draws parallels with the contemporary world and the possibilities to revert human nature in the case of Caterina Morigi; the cultural and ecological desertification of the European landscape, by means of exploring the image, sound and sculptural processes with Murano class and ceramics in the work of Saray Pérez Castilla; sculptures out of polished glass, a material consisting of shiny small crystals of different colours that when acting as a filter are linked in different ways between the elements (water, stone, air) where the hand of Victor Ortuño Sánchez comes into play; the search for depicting the emotional relations between body and inner spaces in the videos-installations and sculptures of Javier R. Peréz-Curiel; and the creation by Matteo Vettorello of devices, biometric tuners that balance relationships between people, and by questioning the notion of efficiency, they become moments of bringing people together and sharing.

The exhibition will be free of charge and will run from 26 September to 9 November 2025 in the Sala Uribitarte40 hall of Fundación BilbaoArte. Subsequently, and coinciding with the 61st International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, the exhibition will be displayed at the Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa. Giudecca 621 (Campo San Cosmo, 30133 Venice), between 17 September and 3 November 2026.

This project has been made possible through a collaboration agreement between Bilbao City Council and the Provincial Council of Bizkaia, as well the continuing patronage of the Otaola Ubieta Family in support of the exchange programme established with the Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa.

In collaboration with Istituzione – Comune di Venezia