Since 2002, Patricia Gómez and María Jesús González (Valencia, Spain, 1978) have been developing an artistic practice that emerges from processes of research, documentation and recording and addresses the relationship between time, social and historical context and the memories of once inhabited spaces.

Through a continuous exercise of unveiling layers of their histories, they work on ruins that still bear the marks of a recent past: disused penitentiary facilities, disused detention centres for migrants, houses left uninhabited as a result of historical and political episodes, or foreign people internment centres about to be demolished. By dealing with the remains of these places, the duo builds archives capable of recalling the lives and stories of those who once inhabited them. In the process, Patricia Gómez and María Jesús also end up rescuing this type of space’s political and ideological character. Their projects and interventions share an archaeological sense that, instead of seeking a nostalgic reconstruction of a lived experience, reveals itself as a path back to the memories of events marginal to the dominant reproduction and narration of history.

Seguir siendo. Santa Clara-a-nova, 1677-2024, 2024

Installation with mural, variable dimensions

Courtesy of the artists.

The history of the Monastery of Santa Clara-a-Nova is inscribed on its walls. Its past under the Order of Poor Clares until the death of its last nun at the end of the 19th century, the occupation by the army until 2006, the hiatus of abandonment until the first biennial revived it. With each edition, the Monastery is transformed, inscribing new stories and marks on its surfaces. Faced with the uncertainty that threatens its future, Seguir siendo. Santa Clara-a-nova, 1677-2024 is conceived as an intervention by Patricia Gómez and María Jesús González based on murals in which the building itself reveals its layers of time, like an abstract altarpiece that tells its own story.Wallpapering is a procedure that allows artists to transfer the material layers deposited over time on a wall to a new support (canvas), obtaining a visual and physical record that is both an archaeological testimony and a full-scale "document". Bringing this procedure inside the Monastery is also a way of perceiving this place not only as an exhibition space, but also as a place for artistic creation — the place as both subject and work.