PARALLEL PROGRAM CITY TERRITORY. ART MADRID'25

OPEN BOOTH X NEBRIJA UNIVERSITY

Art Madrid, in its 20th edition, presents a Parallel Program dedicated to the conceptual theme City Territory. The city, understood as a permeable organism and a topography of shared meanings, serves as the stage for a thoughtful exploration of the impact of art on the spaces we inhabit.

The second edition of Open Booth stands out as a platform for emerging talent, reinforcing its commitment to supporting the artists of the future. This year, Open Booth x Nebrija University offers students from the Fine Arts program the opportunity to experience an art fair firsthand, connecting them with collectors, curators, and gallerists while providing a space to showcase their work within the professional art circuit.

As part of this initiative, undergraduate students in Fine Arts at Nebrija University present Bajotierras/Sobrenubes (DEL OSO, UN PELO), a collective installation exploring the relationship between the city and its surrounding territory. Led by professor and artist Luis Gárciga Romay, and supported by Liquitex, the project investigates -through geometry, landscape, and scale- how environments transform and how we navigate the intersection between the urban and the natural.

With the backing of Liquitex, a leading brand in professional acrylics, Open Booth x Nebrija University continues to establish itself as a space for experimentation and visibility, bringing young artists closer to both the public and key figures in the art world.

Boceto para Bajotierras/Sobrenubes (DEL OSO, UN PELO). Ximena Couttolenc. Cortesía Universidad Nebrija.

BAJOTIERRAS/SOBRENUBES. (DEL OSO, UN PELO)

The project proposed by the students of the Fine Arts program at Nebrija University is a kind of TOTAL BOOTH, a cohesive space that, through collaboration and the exchange of ideas, reflects the collective potential of all participants, elevating the artwork to a new dimension."

Starting from the breadth and depth of the concepts of TERRITORY and CITY, they approach these notions in alliance with the two established poles while remaining open to the expressive possibilities of other scales and combinations that these concepts may evoke. Territory is the geopolitical manifestation of a way of inhabiting space, it is both here and there, shaping how life is organized. It is the stage where resources and hierarchical powers are dictated, interpreted, and transformed.

Boceto para Bajotierras/Sobrenubes (DEL OSO, UN PELO). Cortesía Universidad Nebrija.

Territory is not separate from the place of our emotions, exaltations, doubts, and hopes. Nor do its border confines distance themselves from the most abstract geometric expression. Sometimes a line delimits and marks, creates a corner, an inclined plane; it evokes an emotion, thus generating a vital region. The universality of geometry allows us to position, locate, confront, critique, and propose. Lines, areas, volumes are imbued with colors according to the contexts we live in and the paradigms we uphold. The horizon line and our existential perspectives are interrupted by the natural or built landscape, bringing to our feet a shore and, with it, floating objects, between drift and design. A controlled avalanche, sometimes in its causes, at other times, in its consequences.

Boceto para Bajotierras/Sobrenubes (DEL OSO, UN PELO). Cortesía Universidad Nebrija.

WHAT SHAPES US. Conformity and Re-formation

The city is divine and underground, buried and celestial, made simultaneously of the lightness of the superfluous and the dense gravity. It lives, sometimes hibernates, but always promises. Between conformity and ambition, we achieve something: a good corner between the terrace and the basement, a good "from here onward".

The Open Booth is organized into four interconnected spaces: Avalanche, inspired by the mountains and the river, with objects shaped by the passage of time; Constelar, where floating lamps evoke memory and aspirations; Mar(ejada) Madrid, a conceptual shore designed for contemplation and dialogue; and A Bear Called Tergiverso, a series of pieces that reinvent the city as an ever-changing organism.

The following participants are representing Universidad Nebrija in Open Booth: Blanca Lanaspa, Héctor Mendoza, Diana Díaz, Ainara Asensio, Rita Gentile, Ximena Couttolenc, Laura Nogales, Michelle Camhi, María Lucía Patiño, Andrea Bornstein, Andrea Manjón, Alis Qiu, Carlota Arias, Inés López, Jaime Muñoz, Marialex Arcaya, Melina Fernández, Mónica Escartín, Rebeca Rodríguez, and Belén Sierra.

Boceto para Bajotierras/Sobrenubes (DEL OSO, UN PELO). Cortesía Universidad Nebrija.

In Madrid, the Fine Arts students at Nebrija University question and propose the MATERIALITY and MATERIALS of a constellation where the notions of territory and city coexist with great presence, yet with a subtle protagonism. Procedures, methods, processes; the ways in which we transform the world into a very specific place, more diverse than a country, unfolding beyond a map or a file, yet portable in a pocket. Monuments, miniatures, the human scale. Space overflows and synchronously fits into a single verse. A verse is matter resistant to gravity and time, capable of becoming more than earth and more than cloud, managing to metamorphose and mimic what we are made of.

Luis Gárciga. Curator

Boceto para Bajotierras/Sobrenubes (DEL OSO, UN PELO). Cortesía Universidad Nebrija.

Thanks to initiatives such as these, students not only hone their technical and conceptual skills, but also develop fundamental competences for their professional future in the world of art, design and the creative industries. Through teamwork, the exploration of artistic references, the promotion of creativity and critical thinking, they are prepared to face the challenges of their discipline with a broad and multidisciplinary vision.

From Nebrija University, we would like to express our most sincere thanks to Amaya Hernández, director of the Degree in Digital Design and Multimedia, and Lorena Palomino, director of the Degree in Fine Arts, for their invaluable support and commitment to this project.

Prof. Dr. Pablo Álvarez de Toledo Müller Director of the Art Department Faculty of Communication and Arts. University of Nebrija

The work of Julian Manzelli (Chu) (Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1974) is situated within a field of research in which art adopts methodologies close to scientific thinking without renouncing its poetic and speculative dimension. His practice is structured as an open process of experimentation, in which the studio functions as a laboratory: a space for trial, error, and verification, oriented less toward the attainment of certainties than toward the production of new forms of perception. In this sense, his work enters into dialogue with an epistemology of uncertainty, akin to philosophical traditions that understand knowledge as a process of becoming rather than closure.

Manzelli explores interstitial zones, understood as spaces of transit and transformation. These ambiguous areas are not presented as undefined but as potential—sites where categories dissolve, allowing the emergence of hybrid, almost alchemical configurations that reprogram the gaze. Geometry, far from operating as a normative system, appears tense and destabilized. His precarious constructions articulate a crossing between intuition and reason, play and engineering, evoking a universal grammar present in both nature and symbolic thought. Thus, Manzelli’s works do not represent the world but rather transfigure it, activating questions rather than offering closed answers.

Avícola. Escultura magnética. Madera, imanes, laca automotriz y acero. 45 x 25 cm. 2022.

Science and its methods inspire your process. What kinds of parallels do you find between scientific thinking and artistic creation?

Science and art are two disciplines that I believe share a great deal and are undoubtedly deeply interconnected. I am interested in that point of intersection, and although they are often placed in opposition, I think they share a common origin. Both involve a continuous search, a need for answers that stems from curiosity rather than certainty, and that often—or in many cases—leads both artists and scientists into uncomfortable, uncertain positions, pushing them out of their comfort zones. I believe this is a fundamental and very compelling aspect shared by these two disciplines, which in some way define us as human beings.

In this sense, both share experimentation as a core axis of their practice. Trial and error, testing, and the entire process of experimentation are what generate development. In my case, this applies directly to the studio: I experience it as a laboratory where different projects are developed and materials are tested. It is as if one formulates a hypothesis and then puts it to the test—materials, procedures, forms, colors—and outcomes emerge. These results are not meant to be verified, but rather, in art, I believe their function is to generate new modes of perception, new ways of seeing, and new experiences.

Receptor Lunar #01. Ensamble de Madera Reciclada torneada. 102 x 26 x 26 cm. De la serie Fuerza orgánica. 2023.

You work within the interstices between the natural and the artificial, the figurative and the abstract. What interests you about these ambiguous zones, and what kinds of knowledge emerge from them?

I have always been quite restless, and that has led me to immerse myself in different fields and disciplines. I believe there is a special richness in interstitial spaces—in movement back and forth, in circulation between media. These spaces have always drawn my attention: ambiguous places, hybrid zones. There is something of an amphibious logic here—amphibians as entities that carry and transmit information, that share, that cross boundaries and membranes. In my case, this is closely linked to what I understand as freedom, especially at a time marked by categorization, labeling, and a profound distortion of the very concept of freedom.

On another level, more metaphysical in nature, it is within the mixture—within that blending—that the living energy of creating something new appears, which is undoubtedly a fundamental aspect of what it means to be human. It is as if “one thing becomes something else outside the mold.” This interaction is necessary to break structures, to build new ones, to transmute—to undergo something almost alchemical. I believe fixation is the enemy. In a way, ambiguity is what allows us to reprogram our gaze and generate new points of view.

De la serie Naturaleza orgánica. Madera torneada recuperada de podas de sequía y rezagos de construcción. 2025.

Movement, repetition, and sequence appear as visual strategies in your work. What role does seriality play in the generation of meaning?

Movement, repetition, and sequence are very present in my work. I have a long background in animation, and in some way that interest begins to filter into the other disciplines in which I work. Thus, movement also appears in my visual art practice.

Seriality is a way of thinking about time and of introducing a certain narrative and sense of action into the work, while at the same time conditioning the viewer’s experience. It invites the viewer to try to decipher repetition as a kind of progression. I am particularly interested in more abstract forms of narrative. In this type of narrative, where there is no clear figuration, repetition begins to establish a pulse, a “beat” that marks the passage of time. What is interesting, I think, is the realization that repetition is not exactly duplication, and that what seems identical begins to mutate over time, through rhythm, or through its own unfolding history.

De la serie Naturaleza orgánica. Madera torneada recuperada de podas de sequía y rezagos de construcción. 2025.

You work with geometric and constructive systems. What role does geometry play as a symbolic language within your practice?

Geometry is present in my work in multiple forms and dimensions, generating different dynamics. Generally, I tend to put it into crisis, into tension. When one engages closely with my works, it becomes clear that constructions based on imprecise and unstable balance predominate. I am not interested in symmetry or exactness, but rather in a dynamic construction that proposes a situation. I do not conceive of geometry as a rigid system.

I believe this is where a bridge is established between the intuitive and the rational, between playfulness and engineering—those unexpected crossings. At the same time, geometry functions as a code, a language that connects us to a universal grammar present in nature, in fractals, and that undoubtedly refers to symbolism. It is there that an interesting portal opens, where the work begins to re-signify itself and becomes a process of meaning-making external to itself, entirely uncertain. The results of my works are not pieces that represent; rather, I believe they are pieces that transfigure and, in doing so, generate questions.

WIP. Madera torneada recuperada de podas de sequía y rezagos de contrucción. 2022.

To what extent do you plan your works, and how much space do you leave for the unexpected—or even for error?

In terms of planning, it depends greatly on the project and even on the day. Some projects, due to their scale or complexity, require careful planning, especially when they involve the participation of other people. In many cases, planning is undoubtedly essential.

That said, in the projects I do plan, I am always interested in leaving space for improvisation, where chance or the unfolding of the process itself can come into play. I believe this is where interesting things begin to emerge, and it is important not to let them pass by. Personally, I would find it very boring to work on pieces whose outcome I already know in advance. For me, the realization of each work is an uncertain journey; I do not know where it will lead, and I believe that is where its potential lies—not only for me, but also for the work itself and for the viewer’s experience.