Montipora foliosa

2026Carbon-fibre reinforced polypropylene composite4 × 6.5 metres

Mercedes Azpilicueta’s practice brings together performance, sculpture, installation, and text to explore how identities, histories, and ecologies are shaped through exchange. Montipora foliosa (2026) takes its name from a coral species, drawing together the Arabian Gulf and Argentina’s San Jorge Gulf through their shared marine ecosystems. Inspired by coral reefs—living structures sustained through symbiotic relationships—the installation reflects on resilience, adaptation, and interdependence across distant geographies. Its sculptural forms become carriers of ecological and cultural memory, inviting visitors to consider the unseen connections that link environments, communities, and histories. By bringing these two coastal regions into dialogue, Azpilicueta proposes the reef as both a living archive and a model for collective care, coexistence, and renewal.

Artist's Biography

Mercedes Azpilicueta

Amsterdam, Netherlands

Mercedes Azpilicueta’s practice brings together performance, sculpture, installation, and text. Combining craft-based techniques with industrial production, she creates layered works inspired by speculative Latin American literature, Neo-Baroque art history, and new materialist theory. Her research-driven practice weaves together voices, histories, and embodied narratives, examining how language, memory, and identity are continually performed and reimagined. Her work has been presented internationally through solo exhibitions at de Appel, Amsterdam; Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein; COLLECTIVE, Edinburgh; Gasworks, London; Museion, Bolzano; and MAMBA, Buenos Aires. She has also exhibited at the Barbican Centre, London; Lyon Biennale; Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam; IMMA, Dublin; MAXXI, Rome; MACBA, Barcelona; and the Busan Biennale. Azpilicueta earned a BFA from the Universidad Nacional de las Artes, Buenos Aires (2007), and an MFA from the Dutch Art Institute/ArtEZ (2013). She attended the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten, Amsterdam (2015–2016), received the Pernod Ricard Fellowship (2017), and was nominated for the Prix de Rome (2021).

Loading map…