Sūq, Memories in Barter is a project that investigates markets as historical spaces of cultural and economic exchange, fundamental to understanding intercultural relations prior to globalization. More than mere places of commerce, markets have functioned as living platforms for encounter, the transmission of knowledge, the circulation of cultural goods, and the shaping of hybrid identities. Through a multidisciplinary lens that combines research with artistic creation, this project seeks to reveal the stories contained within these spaces, their transformation over time, and their impact on social and economic dynamics.
This exhibition proposal presents the initial phase of the Sūq, Memories in Barter research, adapting the traditional format of a market stall to showcase the process and focal points of the project. It redefines this space of mercantile exhibition and commercial exchange, transforming it into a site for the artistic display of memories, archives, and objects found in markets. The physical limitations of the stall—its fragility, its ephemeral nature—become a conceptual resource that underscores the mobility and transience of the stories contained within these objects. Mobile devices, screens, and empty frames that once held personal images compose the installation, alongside souvenirs that once inhabited living rooms and family albums. These elements, acquired in second-hand flea markets, carry with them traces of anonymous lives—fragments of displaced memories that now engage in dialogue within a new context, ephemeral and mutable, which vanishes once this "mantle" is gathered up.
Sūq, Memories in Barter, 2025
Installation on blue tarp with mobile devices from the early 2000s.
This work was presented as part of EXPERIMENTA, the I Research Seminar of the Artea group project, funded by the State Research Agency (AEI), held at the Antonio Pérez Foundation. It was also exhibited at the Eduardo Úrculo Cultural Center (Madrid), within the framework of the "Cultura a fuego lento" encounter, organized by 21 Distritos and HablarenArte.