Anna Talens & Mar Guerrero. Territories in transit / Solo Duo: Between the Lighthouse and the Abyss
- Location:
- Exhibition Hall C
- Opening:
- Artists:
- Mar Guerrero and Anna Talens
- Curatorship:
- Alicia Ventura
“Territories in Transit” is a coproduction between IVAM – Institut Valencià d’Art Modern and Es Baluard Museu. Jointly conceived as an exhibition project for both art centres, its aim is to set up a dialogue between geographical and cultural contexts related to the Mediterranean region. For the first time ever, the work of Anna Talens (Valencia, 1978) and Mar Guerrero (Mallorca, 1991) is presented in a duo exhibition, their practices converging to reflect on the sea as a space of transit, memory and transformation.
This exhibition invites us to think of the sea not as a boundary, but as a territory: a living, ever-changing body where cartography dissolves and borders are defined not by fixed lines, but by currents, tides and temporal rhythms. Far from a mere liquid horizon, the sea appears as an unstable geography – a space that cannot be walked upon, yet sustains the movement of bodies, memories and materials.
In this inversion of perspective, the liquid becomes the norm and the solid the exception. Blue is no longer a background, but a structure; the terrestrial ceases to occupy the centre. From this logic, the sea stops being landscape or romantic metaphor and becomes a contemporary territory, charged with political, historical, aesthetic and affective dimensions.
The works of Mar Guerrero and Anna Talens inhabit this threshold, where the sea is understood not only as nature, but as an archive of experiences and resonances.
Mar Guerrero works with residual materials from the ocean – eroded plastics, driftwood – which she collects and transforms into sculptural objects. In her hands, these remnants cease to be waste and become witnesses to transit, pollution and resistance. Each piece retains the memory of its marine journey, proposing an aesthetic where beauty emerges from what is discarded, inviting reflection on our relationship with the environment.
Anna Talens, by contrast, approaches the horizon as a perceptual and spiritual experience. Her works explore the boundary between the visible and the invisible, between what expands and what fades. In her practice, the horizon is not a vanishing point, but a moving presence that structures the gaze and embodies the possibility of the unattainable.
Both artists inhabit the fold between the material and the immaterial, between the terrestrial and the abyssal. The sea becomes mirror and threshold: a surface of transit and a space of symbolic depth. Before it, the gaze does not shrink; it opens. This exhibition invites viewers to dwell in that ambiguity, recognising in the unfathomable sea the possibility of imagining new ways of being and seeing the world.
Mar Guerrero (Palma, Mallorca, 1991) has a degree in Fine Arts from the Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha (2014), and then studied for a Master in Artistic Production at the Universitat Politècnica de València (2016). Since 2024 she has been studying for a PhD in Cognition and Society from the Universitat de les Illes Balears (UIB).
She has exhibited in solo and group shows at Galería Formato Cómodo (Madrid), Galería Juan Silió (Madrid), Dilalica (Barcelona), Loop Barcelona, Es Baluard Museu d’Art Contemporani de Palma (Mallorca), Fundación Juan March (Palma), Casal Solleric (Palma), Institut Valencià d’Art Modern – IVAM (Valencia), Fundació Vila Casas (Barcelona) and Contemporánea Condeduque (Madrid), amongst others. She has participated in artistic residencies at Nirox Foundation (Johannesburg, 2017), SÍM (Reykjavik, 2019), Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity (Banff, 2020), La Wayaka Current (San Pedro de Atacama, 2022), Belgrade AIR (Belgrade, 2023), Studio Weil (New York, 2024), Matadero (Madrid, 2026) and Tabakalera (San Sebastian, 2026).
She received an award from the Pilar Juncosa & Sotheby’s Awards and Grants 2020, as well as grants from InJuve para la Creación Joven 2021/2022, VEGAP Visual Creation 2023, Generaciones 2023 of La Casa Encendida and the Fundación Montemadrid, as well as the Art Situat Grant 2026 from Centre d’Art La Panera, in collaboration with Entorns.
Anna Talens (Carcaixent, Valencia, 1978) has a PhD in Fine Arts from the Universitat Politècnica de València, which received a European mention and the Doctoral Thesis Special Prize. She has been a researcher and visiting student at Bauhaus-Universität Weimar, Universität der Künste Berlin, The Australian National University (Canberra) and Central Saint Martins (London). She currently lives and works in Berlin.
Talens received grants for residencies at the Real Academia de España in Rome (2018–2019) and Klassik Stiftung Weimar (2024). Her work has been seen in solo and group exhibitions in institutions such as CaixaForum (Barcelona and Seville), IVAM (Valencia), Matadero Madrid, Azkuna Zentroa (Bilbao), Gemäldegalerie (Berlin), Fundació Vila Casas (Barcelona), Fundación Chirivella Soriano (Valencia), Fundación Cerezales Antonino y Cinia (León), Centro de Arte Alcobendas (Madrid), Herzogin Anna Amalia Bibliothek (Weimar), Villa Croce (Genoa), Una Vetrina (Rome) and MUCAC (Malaga), amongst others.
She was awarded the Art Situacions Prize and the Obert València – Hortensia Herrero Foundation Acquisition Prize. Her projects and public commissions include Palafit, done in 2021 for CaixaForum Valencia, and Lichtmeer, which in 2024 received the Second Prize of the International Contest for the Leipzig Freedom and Unity Monument.
