El Bòlit inaugurates "Variant Delta", a project by Mireia Ferron and Irena Visa

El Bòlit. Center d'Art Contemporani inaugurates on January 21st Variant Delta, a project framed in the artistic residence in the Delta de l'Ebre, an annual call made jointly by Lo Pati. Terres de l'Ebre and Bòlit Art Center, Contemporary Art Center. Girona. Mireia Ferron was the winner of the 2020 edition and Irena Visa of the 2021 edition.

The internships of the two artists have little in common, but the experiences they had during the residency are variations on the same theme. Both indicate that life in the Delta is not an easily perceptible life in the eye and is only detectable on suspicion. All this materializes in the projects Introduced species by Mireia Ferron, It has rained or watered by Irena Visa and a shared one entitled Domesticating the space.

Both Ferron and Visa were residents in the town of Balada, in the residence area called Baladre, in Terres de l'Ebre. The oleander is a toxic plant, very common in some coastal cities and on highways or national roads to separate lanes. The natural setting of the Ebro area is idyllic and if you want to get lost in the way of Thoreau, you can find your cabin here. But the nature-culture tandem, which Dona Haraway concentrates on a single concept, sometimes underscores its split. Ferron went through the residency in 2020 and Visa was there last November. The series of objects on display are the result of trying to make life possible and sustainable in the isolated space of the residence. This need to “domesticate” the place led the two artists to reflect on what are the subjective minimums to move from a refuge in the middle of a natural environment to a living space, and what are our limits of material deficiencies to carry a comfortable life. How important is a light bulb or a cup? The purchase of these items has made it possible to live and use a space, which was initially difficult for everyday life. These objects remain temporarily here and will return to their natural place, the Baladre residence, when the exhibition ends.

Mireia Ferron's photographs are close to a formal abstraction of bodies and matter, in which light plays a leading role conceptually. Ferron, in almost all the projects, puts the images in dialogue with each other, silently, from the montage. A visual narrative close to the rhythm of a river current. In relation to the project in Lo Pati, Ferron was interested in delving into the geological accident of a delta, the one shown from the sediment, the silt mud and the clay, the one that - according to his words - makes the gaze stop on the horizon and fall to the ground. According to Ferron, animal life in the Delta is not always perceptible from optical evidence, but mainly from sound clues and disruption at a steady pace.

Irena Visa, the daughter of a photographer, began by investigating the relationship between memory, imagination and images, both those that have been mechanically or digitally recorded. In this project, Visa proposes, in his own words: "A relocation of clues, of signs, in the natural environment that make the hypotheses about its origin unfold. Thus, a soft ground can be an indication of rain but it can also be a sign that they have watered in. The ten documentary images that make up this exhibition show actions taken since 2013 between Pla de l’Estany, Barcelona and Terres de l’Ebre, as well as two actions made specifically for the interior of the Bòlit_LaRambla room: a mark on the wall that does not correspond to any furniture and a sawmill for a non-existent leak ".