How much space do we need?
In 2011, the Luis Seoane Foundation in A Coruña held an exhibition entitled Cabañas para pensar (Huts for Thinking). It was a detailed inventory of small constructions that philosophers, musicians or writers had built as a place to think and concentrate in solitude and without disturbance. Some of them even lived there for a while. Most of these huts were far from urban centres, usually isolated and surrounded by nature.
The village where the workshop took place is in a rural environment in Chantada, far from large urban centres and very conducive to concentration, walking and direct contact with nature.
Based on a theoretical-practical approach, we proposed the creation of spaces or places conducive to thinking and reflection, according to each participant.
We used materials and conditions found in Chantada, together with other resources provided by the participants.
In short, the workshop proposed to reflect on the space needed to generate thoughts, ideas and reflections, trying to answer the questions: what space do we need? And how much space do we need?
Ignasi Aballí
Photos © Ximena Garrigues
Ignasi Aballí
Ignasi Aballí, Barcelona, 1958
He graduated in Fine Arts from the University of Barcelona.
He has had numerous solo exhibitions in Spain and abroad, including at the Macba in Barcelona (2005), the Serralves Foundation in Porto (Portugal, 2006), the IKON Gallery in Birmingham (UK, 2006), the ZKM in Karlsruhe (Germany, 2006), the Pinacoteca do Estado de Sao Paulo, Brazil (2010), the Museo Artium, Vitoria (2012), the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid (2015), the Fundación Miró, Barcelona (2016), the Museo de Arte de la Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Bogotá (2017), the Galeria Kula (Split) and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb, Croatia (2018) and the Meadows Museum, Dallas, (Texas, 2022). He has exhibited several times at the Estrany de la Mota gallery in Barcelona, Elba Benítez in Madrid and Meessen de Clercq in Brussels. He has also recently exhibited at the galleries Proyecto Paralelo (Mexico City, Mexico), Pedro Oliveira (Porto, Portugal) and Nordenhake (Berlin, Germany).
He has participated in the 52nd Venice Biennial (2007), the 8th Sharjah Biennial (United Arab Emirates, 2007), the 11th Sydney Biennial (1998), the 4th Guangzhou Triennial (China, 2012) and the 13th Cuenca Biennial (Ecuador, 2016).
In 2015 he was awarded the V Joan Miró Prize.
In 2022 he will represent the Spanish Pavilion at the 59th Venice Biennale with the project Corrección.
Portrait of Ignasi Aballí © Roberto Ruíz