Raquel G. Ibáñez. Sienten las piedras [The Stones Feel]

If we were to plunge into the hole of Antoni Tàpies’ Mitjó [Sock], perhaps we would see the sky. Or the bowels of the earth. Or that familiar corner we had never truly noticed before. The hole would then appear as an opening, a threshold from which to gaze upon a terrace exposed to the sun and the elements—a space where contemplation of the everyday becomes strangely mysterious. As if perception, by straying just slightly from its usual course, had opened up a small fissure, an interstice that, following Tim Ingold’s reflections, would not enclose a fixed meaning but would remain between the lines. “An aerial knot.”

Perhaps, then, it would be enough to pull the thread and listen. To listen to the wind, the flowing water, the melting snow or the distant crack of a falling tree. To listen also to what vibrates between bodies and objects. From this sustained attention, a small-scale ritual would unfold. If we were to plunge into the hole.

With this invitation in mind, Raquel G. Ibáñez has designed a listening session in which recordings of atmospheric phenomena and natural environments enter into a distorted dialogue—like a thread in an expanded, nonhierarchical weave, intertwining the ancestral and the technological, the intimate and the geological. In resonance with Mary Oliver’s poetic sensitivity to the wondrous dimensions of the everyday, this piece subtly shifts perception to reveal—if only momentarily—other ways of relating to the environment.

…

From this invitation, the artist proposes a listening session in which recordings of atmospheric phenomena and natural environments dialogue and distort. Like another thread in an expanded weave, the ancestral and the technological, the intimate and the geological, intertwine without hierarchies. In resonance with Mary Oliver’s poetic sensitivity to the wondrous dimensions of the everyday, the piece subtly shifts perception and opens—if only momentarily—other ways of relating to the environment.

Raquel G. Ibáñez’s artistic practice explores liminality and the boundaries between sound, language and visual image, using listening—both human and more-than-human—as a methodological tool rooted in acousmaticology. Her work focuses on the intangible and on the thresholds between the human, the spiritual and the natural, while also examining the tension between the ancestral and the future within a context of global crisis. Her processes highlight the fragility and interdependence of biological life, materialised in various formats such as sound, drawing, performance, installation and expanded publishing.

She has developed projects in institutions such as CA2M-Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo, Fundación Cerezales Antonino y Cinia, Tsonami Arte Sonoro, CDAN, Sonandes, La Casa Encendida and MACBA. She has received a number of awards and grants, including the 2024 Miquel Casablancas Prize, the 2024 Circuitos Artes Plásticas Prize, the Comunidad de Madrid’s Visual Arts Creation Grants and public grants from the Spanish Ministry of Culture for the creation, research and production of artistic projects.

Her career includes artistic residencies at spaces like AADK, Jazz ao Centro and Bulegoa and she has participated in sound art and experimental music festivals such as Insonora 14, Sur Aural, Rota Music Festival and Soundtiago, among others. Her involvement in the poetry and performance collective Una Fiesta Salvaje and the publication of her book Granate consolidate a practice that entwines creation, research and writing.

Activity programmed as part of the Museu Tàpies series Following the Sun, entitled Uncovering the Gaze, curated by Carolina Ciuti.