Intercessions. Performance Cycle X Tara For Women. Parallel Program. Art Madrid'24

INTERCESSIONS. PERFORMANCE CYCLE X TARA FOR WOMEN

In his Poetics of Space, Gaston Bachelard states: "One must be in the present, in the present of the image, in the minute of the image: if there is a philosophy of poetry, this philosophy must be born and reborn with the motif of a dominant verse, in total adherence to an isolated image, and precisely in the ecstasy of the novelty of the image”.

In our present time, a moment of homogenized images, we find a problem that is expressed in the need to listen to the voices that come from otherness. In those other places, it is still possible to find the novelty of the image and the poetry of the image that announces diversity. Everything seems known or familiar if we explore the possibilities of representing a concise idea of the present, of the moment that obliges us to act. From here, contemporary art serves as a pretext to transform society, making use of its goodness as a healing instrument and giving voice to those who turn their vocation into dominant verse, to break into the scenario in which everything happens and takes place, thus making them part of what is happening.

Are we capable of putting ourselves in the place of the other? Do we use our privileged place to intercede for others? How often do we drop our "I" to support the " We"? What does it mean to work for the common good?

All these questions are answered in the exercise of intercession. How people intercede for one another in order to change the course of events, how intercession has the purpose of finding a solution for the improvement of our fellows, how the work and the commitment of those for whom we intercede are brought into a common place.

Thus was born Intercessions, a Performance Cycle X Tara For Women, part of the Parallel Program of Art Madrid'24, featuring artists Estel Boada (Mataró, Barcelona, 1991), Teresa Búa (Muxía, A Coruña, 1991), Sara Domínguez (Málaga, 1993) and Mónica Egido (Salamanca, 1994). The main purpose of the cycle is to bet on projects that reflect our times. The performance in its multiple dramaturgical expressions, especially those that use the body as a vehicle to deconstruct and observe from a critical perspective, the relationship of human beings with their natural environment, are conducive to relate the truth of our time.

Mónica Egido. Still from the FOMO Project. 2024.

Like hands to the body, eyes to the soul, earth to life, and art to society, the powerful metaphor that represents the exercise of interceding for the other turns the stage of the fair into a device capable of activating and communicating the concerns of the invited artists and extending them to the public in a gesture of empathy..

The treatment of human relations makes the carnal habitat a reservoir of affection for the surrounding reality. To intercede for others, to propitiate an intercession with the objective of achieving a benefit for an entity or subject that dynamizes our action, is the leitmotif of this performance cycle, which appropriates one of the most important artistic moments of the year and transforms it into a catapult of projection for the four participating artists.

Estel Boada. Performance of Pfff Historia d'una Fitball. Documentation. 2024.

Intercessions proposes a sharp look at the symbolic relationship between human beings and their context, turning the body into a reservoir of affections that enables intercession and the act of interceding for other entities or subjects. In essence, this initiative seeks to promote reflections that transcend the surface of everyday experience, challenging prejudices and entering into the construction of an artistic legacy forged from experience stripped of conventionalisms.

The selection of artists responds to the need to highlight the relevance of works that, through performance, have a strong impact on the collective conscience regarding the challenges and dangers that threaten our society and the way we relate to others. The human body, considered as a motor and a link with the artistic and natural essence, becomes the epicenter of the conceptual exploration proposed by this program, transcending the ordinary to unravel the complexities of the intercession between the individual and his environment.

During the days of the fair, Intercessions will transform the exhibition space into an activating device powerfully communicating the urgency with which humanity must approach the construction of its future legacy. Just as the hands are to the body, the eyes to the soul, and the earth to life, this cycle of performances affirms that art, in its maximum expression, intercedes for us, and represents the fundamental notion that will guide the participants in their search for the transcendence and meaning of their works. Intercessions is thus established as a manifesto of performance, a critical and transformative instrument forging a provocative and necessary dialogue in the context of Art Madrid'24.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Mónica Egido (Salamanca, 1994) is a visual artist with a background in physiotherapy and specialization in neuroscience of chronic pain and obstetrics. She has excelled in the field of photography, being selected for Futures Photography 2023 and awarded a grant by PhotoEspaña. Her work, exhibited in various spaces in Europe, addresses different issues of neuroscience in relation to health, using art as a mechanism for dissemination, as in her latest project FOMO, where she talks about the impact of permanent anxiety on physical and mental health. Her piece Vacío reflects on the feeling of dissatisfaction and unhappiness that many people of the millennial generation suffer from.

Mónica Egido. Guest artist of Intercessions. Performance Cycle X Tara For Women.

Mónica Egido presents at Art Madrid'24 her performance: VACÍO. From the series FOMO

Vacío is a reflection of the sense of dissatisfaction and constant unhappiness that many people belonging to the millennial generation suffer from.

Mónica Egido. Still from Vacío. FOMO Project. 2024.

Sara Gema Domínguez (Malaga, 1993) is an artist with a background in Fine Arts and a MA in Interdisciplinary Artistic Production and Research. She specializes in action art, exploring the relationship between art and life. The performance Bingo de Artista satirizes and criticizes the processes of artistic professionalization, inviting the public to participate as potential creators in a game that questions chance and artistic recognition.

Sara Gema Domínguez. Guest artist of Intercessions. Performance Cycle X Tara For Women.

Sara Gema Domínguez presents at Art Madrid'24 her performance: BINGO DE ARTISTA

Chance is a constant in our lives, and the context in which an artist is born or develops is essential to determine their position in the market or mere recognition.

Sara Gema Domínguez. Bingo de artista. Documentation. 2024.

Teresa Búa (Muxía, A Coruña, 1991) combines fine arts, fashion design and craftsmanship in her artistic projects. Her work, represented in national and international exhibitions, focuses on self-knowledge, Galician cultural heritage and digital fashion.

Teresa Búa. Guest artist of Intercessions. Performance Cycle X Tara For Women.

Teresa Búa presents at Art Madrid'24 her performance: MATERNIDAD 4. AMAMANTAR

This work invites us to witness the beauty of maternal experience as a source of creativity in the intercession of life and production as interconnected forces in human experience.

Teresa Búa. Maternidad 4. Amamantar. Documentation. 2024.

Estel Boada (Mataró, Barcelona, 1991) is a multifaceted artist who addresses past, present and future issues in an ironic and burlesque way. With a background in Fine Arts, her work includes design, drawing, performance, among others…

Estel Boada. Guest artist of Intercessions. Performance Cycle X Tara For Women.

Estel Boada presents at Art Madrid'24 her performance: STAND, BY ME

Stand, by Me is a performance that wants to address the responsibility and the position of an art fair stand from an ironic and burlesque point of view.

Estel Boada. Stand, By Me. Documentation. 2024.

PERFORMANCES

Wednesday, 6 March / 19:00 h - Mónica Egido - VACÍO

Thursday, 7 March / 19:00 h - Sara Gema Domínguez - BINGO DE ARTISTA

Friday, 8 March / 17:00 h - Teresa Búa - MATERNIDAD 4. AMAMANTAR

Saturday, 9 March / 19:00 h - Estel Boada - STAND, BY ME

The performance cycle Intercessions. X Tara For Women is supported by the Foundation, whose mission is to empower talented women around the world to promote sustainable economic and social development. Its vision is to build a global community without borders, where talented women find the necessary empowerment and access to the essential tools to achieve success in their endeavors and artistic expressions. True to its values, it joins Art Madrid in this edition to contribute to the much-needed work of representing the talent of women artists in the national contemporary art exhibition circuit.

The work of Iyán Castaño (Oviedo, 1996) is situated within a genealogy of contemporary art that interrogates the tension between the ephemeral and the permanent, placing artistic practice on a threshold where nature, time, and perception converge. His research begins with an apparently minor geomorphological phenomenon—the traces left in the sand by the action of the tides—and transforms it into a poetic device for sensitive observation of the landscape. The temporal restriction imposed by low tide functions not only as a technical constraint but also as a conceptual structure that organizes the creative process and aligns it with an ethic of radical attention and presence.

Far from approaching the landscape as a mere backdrop or stage, Castaño recognizes in the maritime environment a generative system that precedes all human intervention. The sea, wind, and light produce autonomous records that he translates pictorially, shifting authorship toward a practice of listening and mediation.

The territory—initially asturian and progressively extended to other geographical contexts—functions as a material archive and situated memory. Each work becomes an unrepeatable index of a specific place and moment, revealing the fragility of natural cycles without resorting to explicit rhetoric of denunciation. In this way, Iyán Castaño’s painting operates as an active pause, a gesture of suspension that allows us to experience the world’s constant transformation from a sensitive and reflective proximity.

Open waters. 14-04-24. Expanded graphic on canvas. 2024. Detail.

In your practice, you work under the time constraint imposed by low tide. How does this temporal limit shape your creative process?

Low tide profoundly conditions my working method, but it does not function merely as a time limit; rather, it is the axis around which the entire project is structured. There is a prior phase in which I study meteorological conditions and the possible climatic variations of a specific day; based on this, I know whether I will be able to work and with which materials.

Once on the beach, during low tide, I have a very limited window—sometimes barely two hours or even less—in which I must move through the space searching for existing traces. If I find one, I intervene in it; if not, I must move on to another beach. After the intervention, I have to remove it quickly before the sea returns and erases every trace. In a way, these works transform the ripples of sand—those forms that are essentially ephemeral—into something permanent.

Where the sea is born. 15-09-25. Expanded graphic on canvas. 40 x 60 cm. Rodiles Beach, Asturias. 2025.

How does the meteorological and maritime environment—the unpredictability of the sea, wind, light, and tide—become a co-author of your pieces?

I do not consider the environment a co-author in the traditional sense, but rather the true author of the traces I work with. I am interested in understanding nature as a great creator: through tides, waves, wind, and light, the sand generates forms that are in constant regeneration. In order to create my works, the sea must first have created its own.

From there, using acrylics, oils, waxes, or sprays, I attempt to translate into the work my sensations and emotions in front of the sea at that specific moment. Whether it is winter or summer, cloudy or sunny, a small cove or an expansive beach, all of these context conditions result and become imprinted in the work.

Sand Ripples. 07-04-21. Expanded graphic on canvas. 189 x 140 cm. Niembro Estuary. Asturias. 2021.

Your work is closely tied to the Asturian territory—beaches, coastal forests, the cove of La Cóndia. What role do place, topography, local identity, and geographic memory play in your practice?

Place is everything in my project. Asturias was the point of departure and the territory where my gaze was formed. I have been working along this line for seven years, and over time I have come to understand that each trace is inseparable from the specific site and the exact day on which it is produced.

From there, I felt the need to expand the map and begin working in other territories. So far, I have developed works in Senegal, Ecuador, the Galápagos Islands, Indonesia, and elsewhere—and in each case, the result is completely different. The sea that bathes those coasts, the arrangement of the rocks, the morphology of the beach, or even the animals that inhabit it generate unique traces, impossible to reproduce elsewhere. This specificity of territory—its topography and geographic memory—is inscribed in each work in a singular, inseparable, and unrepeatable way.

Mangata. 05-11-25. Expanded graphic on canvas. 190 x 130 cm. Sorraos Beach. Llanes. 2025.

To what extent are climate change, rising sea levels, altered tidal cycles, or coastal erosion present—or potentially present—as an underlying reflection in your work?

My work does not originate from an ecological intention or a direct form of protest. If there is a reflection on the environment, it emerges indirectly, by bringing people closer to the landscape, inviting them to observe attentively and to develop a more empathetic relationship with the environment they inhabit. Beaches are in constant transformation, but I do not seek to fix the landscape; rather, I attempt to convey the experience of being in front of it. In this sense, each work is like a small sea that one can take home.

Tree of Life. 19-02-25. Expanded graphic on canvas. 50 x 70 cm. El Puntal Beach. Asturias. 2025.

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

In my work there is very little planning in terms of the final result, but there is a very precise preliminary planning. Before going to the beach, I monitor the time of low tide, wave height, wind, and weather conditions; based on this, I decide which beach to go to. Even so, when I arrive, I still do not know what work I am going to make. It is there that I determine which material to use, which color to apply, and where the intervention will take place. Many times, the environment simply does not allow work on that day, and chance becomes an essential element of these works. Error, in turn, becomes a new possibility if one learns how to work with it.