Magdalena Hart

“El Aire Permite Abrir Espacio” (translation from English to Spanish: “Air Opens Space”) is the title given to an installation format within the series “Archivos Porosos”,  a living research practice that explores composting as both methodology and metaphor.

The work emerges from a process of symbolic and material decomposition—a gesture of reconfiguring language, memory, and artistic practice through porous, more-than-human dialogues.

“Siento el descomponer en múltiples formas, en la piel, en las pequeñas muertes, al nadar, al flotar, en el viento, al quemarme, al enterrarme. Un gesto para revisitar: qué se guarda, qué se archiva, qué se entierra.”

This installation consists of twelve motorized iron sculptures, created in collaboration with metallurgist María Chidan, which slowly shift, rotate, and breathe. Their choreography is subtle yet persistent, evoking the elemental dynamics of air: drift, turbulence, stillness, storm. In constant motion, they respond to the space they inhabit, creating a choreography of interdependence.

This pieces emerges from the intimate need to capture the subtleties of my research, the delicacies of the process or methodology itself. A gesture to revisit: what is kept, what is archived, what is buried. It is an exploration to compost my practice, to let words decompose and nourish the soil. A format that reflects the research I’ve carried out over recent years, opening a dialogue between art, technology, and ecology.

In a present marked by ecological and narrative tensions, composting the archive becomes an urgent act. Western language acts as a lens, but also as a limit. Built upon oppressive taxonomies, they continues to shape our relations. How can we imagine futures while constrained by a lack of vocabulary? In nature, there is no waste—let the words fragment, rot, and feed what has not yet germinated. Language, like organic matter, erodes over time—a fertile ground for new thought configurations.  How do we foster and transform our connections? Moisture as a gesture of metabolization.

Here, air becomes a method of listening. A porous space where language decomposes and transforms into embodied knowledge. The installation invites viewers to inhabit the between form and formlessness, between what is remembered and what is yet to emerge.