Date : 14.11.2026 – 16.11.2026
Location : Loop, Barcelona
Venue : Cutural Foundation, Carrer de Josep Anselm. Clavé, 31, 08002, Barcelona
Curatorial Direction: Elena Posokhovа
Artists: Arash Hanaei, Olivia Baes, Caroline Poggi & Jonathan Vinel, Alessandra Craba, Anna Nezhnaya, Ildefonso Aguilar, Atchen Pounapal, Yann Toma, Azadeh Nilchiani, Dana-Fiona Armour, Melia Roger, Andrew Erdos, Astrid Dick.
Support: CulturFoundry (Paris), Frédéric Lorin; Casarusa foundation, Anne Silunas (Barcelona); MARLANDS (international project about islands).
The exhibition emerged as an immediate response to massive fires across Europe. The voices of curator and artists responding to these events created an impulse to produce new works and present previously created pieces. The project brings together artists, filmmakers, and sound artists articulating urgent perspectives on the crisis—on solidarity and action, on restoration and destruction, on fragmentation and community, barriers, myth-making and identity, its transformation and loss. On fire between us.
Fire is a symbol of dual energy: simultaneously destructive and creative, a paradox that emerges, for example, in Gaston Bachelard’s “Psychoanalysis of Fire,” where fire attracts, unites, and destroys. This project addresses the reality of the Anthropocene, when human influence increasingly intertwines with natural processes. Forest fires, scorched landscapes, ecological collapse carry material and sociocultural consequences. Here fire functions as a metaphor: rifts in identity, political tension, erasure of memory, destruction of habitat. Yet the same force that destroys territory and culture is capable of uniting—gathering people around warmth, creating relationships between people, within the self, between humanity and nature. Fire carries transformative power—a symbol of purification, renewal, and collective gathering. It illuminates, warms, and regenerates, transforming matter, energy, and consciousness. In ritual and moments of everyday connection, fire becomes a force of healing and transcendence.
Each artistic project experiences fire in its own dimension. In “The Last Hidden Words” by Arash Hanaei, fire burns trees and architectural materials, pointing to the collapse of utopian ideals of the recent past. In “Diary of the Earth” (2026) by Olivia Baes, screens transmit the wildfire crisis, simultaneously connecting and distancing us from reality. Caroline Poggi and Jonathan Vinel, through the image of a melancholic pyromaniac in “Il faut regarder le feu ou brûler dedans” (2022), transform fire into a healing of Corsica’s devastated land. Alessandra Craba in “Burn Art – Not Earth,” through the gesture of burning the sky in photography, addresses the language of social media, mobilizing a collective response to climate catastrophe. Anna Nezhnaya in “my mental health this monday morning” depicts psychological burnout from the continuous consumption of digital catastrophes. In the context of Lanzarote, Ildefonso Aguilar in “Horizonte” (2023) transforms volcanic fire into a visible process of geological transformation, while another artist working there, Atchen Pounapal in “Arqueología del ciclo,” uses fire as an instrument of decolonial memory and ritual burning of cultural identity.
The project privileges artists working in the context of France, Spain, and Italy—territories where climate crisis and identity transformation constitute lived reality—as well as those engaging with island territories. Islands represent unique spatial configurations where ecological fragility intersects with cultural precarity. The volcanic geology of some of these territories establishes a direct correlation with fire as both a geological phenomenon and a historical force—landscapes formed by fire and subject to perpetual vulnerability to volcanic activity.
The exhibition program presents previously created works and pieces specially developed for this project in August-September 2026, as well as works in process: video-documented performances, audio and video works. This section of the program includes works exploring the power and force of fire, its political and geopolitical dimensions, its connection to emotions and passions between people, as well as the importance of unity in preventing and responding to catastrophes, protecting nature and lives. This section features works by artists: Yann Toma “Dynamo-Fukushima,” Azadeh Nilchiani “Ceasefire,” Melia Roger “Deep ears,” Andrew Erdos “WALK FASTER RAISE HELL,” and Astrid Dick “Vanity, all is vanity.”
These works will be presented within the framework of a special meeting with artists, curator Elena Posokhovа, and organizers CulturFoundry (Paris), represented by Frédéric Lorin, who provided support for video work presentations, and Anne Silunas and her team, supporting curatorial and cultural projects in Barcelona.
CulturFoundry unites art enthusiasts and passionate supporters of contemporary artistic creation. The association gives visibility to artists not represented by galleries, finances contemporary art exhibitions in unconventional spaces in France, and organizes visits to artist studios and art centers to discover contemporary creative practice.
