Mercedes Azpilicueta: Embodied and Speculative Writing & Modular Exploration

In this workshop, Mercedes Azpilicueta will work collaboratively with students on embodied and speculative writing, engaging with excerpts from An Art Student in Munich (1853) by proto-feminist British artist Anna Mary Howitt.

Students will participate in speculative writing exercises that reimagine the city—today or in the future—describing it from an embodied perspective, capturing its shifting landscapes, and sensing its layered histories. These reflections will continue to take shape in the exhibition space, where we will work with modular sculptures—rearranging and responding to them as extensions of our writing.

How do words and movement transform space? How do past and present collide in our perceptions?

Mercedes Azpilicueta (La Plata, Argentina, 1981) is a visual and performance artist from Buenos Aires who lives and works in Amsterdam. Her artistic practice brings together various characters from the past and present who approach the vulnerable or collective body from a decolonial feminist perspective. Through fluid and associative connections, she counters rigid historical narratives to dismantle them and create space for affective and dissident voices to emerge. Her work manifests in performative and sculptural installations, inspired by speculative and fictional Latin American literature, neo baroque art history, contemporary popular culture, and new materialism theory. Through collaborative and interdisciplinary practices, she combines “precarious” craft-based techniques—historically associated with obsolete domestic knowledge—with industrialized productions.

She was a resident artist at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam in 2015-16 and received the Pernod Ricard Fellowship in 2017. Her solo exhibitions include Kunstverein Göttingen (2023); Sammlung Philara, Düsseldorf (2022); Gasworks, London (2021); CAC Brétigny, Brétigny-sur-Orge (2021); Museion, Bolzano/Bozen (2020); Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven (2019); CentroCentro, Madrid (2019); and MAMBA, Buenos Aires (2018). Her work has been presented at Villa Vassilieff, Paris; REDCAT Gallery, Los Angeles; MACBA, Barcelona (all in 2018); CA2M, Móstoles (2017); Onomatopee, Eindhoven (2016); TENT, Rotterdam (2015); and the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin (2014). Azpilicueta was nominated for the Prix de Rome 2021.

In this workshop, Mercedes Azpilicueta will work collaboratively with students on embodied and speculative writing, engaging with excerpts from An Art Student in Munich (1853) by proto-feminist British artist Anna Mary Howitt.

Students will participate in speculative writing exercises that reimagine the city—today or in the future—describing it from an embodied perspective, capturing its shifting landscapes, and sensing its layered histories. These reflections will continue to take shape in the exhibition space, where we will work with modular sculptures—rearranging and responding to them as extensions of our writing.

How do words and movement transform space? How do past and present collide in our perceptions?

Mercedes Azpilicueta (La Plata, Argentina, 1981) is a visual and performance artist from Buenos Aires who lives and works in Amsterdam. Her artistic practice brings together various characters from the past and present who approach the vulnerable or collective body from a decolonial feminist perspective. Through fluid and associative connections, she counters rigid historical narratives to dismantle them and create space for affective and dissident voices to emerge. Her work manifests in performative and sculptural installations, inspired by speculative and fictional Latin American literature, neo baroque art history, contemporary popular culture, and new materialism theory. Through collaborative and interdisciplinary practices, she combines “precarious” craft-based techniques—historically associated with obsolete domestic knowledge—with industrialized productions.

She was a resident artist at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam in 2015-16 and received the Pernod Ricard Fellowship in 2017. Her solo exhibitions include Kunstverein Göttingen (2023); Sammlung Philara, Düsseldorf (2022); Gasworks, London (2021); CAC Brétigny, Brétigny-sur-Orge (2021); Museion, Bolzano/Bozen (2020); Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven (2019); CentroCentro, Madrid (2019); and MAMBA, Buenos Aires (2018). Her work has been presented at Villa Vassilieff, Paris; REDCAT Gallery, Los Angeles; MACBA, Barcelona (all in 2018); CA2M, Móstoles (2017); Onomatopee, Eindhoven (2016); TENT, Rotterdam (2015); and the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin (2014). Azpilicueta was nominated for the Prix de Rome 2021.

The workshop takes place in cooperation and with the kind support of Salta Art.

 

Workshop

07.05.2025 10 am – 1 pm

 

An Art Student in Munich

Salvatorplatz 4 Luitpoldblock

80333 Munich

 

 

Workshop

07.05.2025 10 am – 1 pm

 

An Art Student in Munich

Salvatorplatz 4 Luitpoldblock

80333 Munich