Raquel G. Ibáñez. Sienten las piedras

If we were to plunge into the hole of Antoni Tàpies’ 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 the contemplation of the everyday becomes strangely mysterious. As if perception, by straying just slightly from its usual course, opened 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.

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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 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, materializing 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 awards and grants including the Premi Miquel Casablancas 2024, Circuitos Artes Plásticas 2024, the Comunidad de Madrid’s Visual Arts Creation Grants, and public grants for the creation, research, and production of artistic projects from the Ministry of Culture.

Her career includes artistic residencies at spaces like aadk, Jazz ao Centro, and Bulegoa, as well as participation 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 solidify a practice that intertwines creation, research, and writing.

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

Image: Raquel G. Ibáñez. Photo: Juan Hoppe