This exhibition offers an approach to the Albufera de Valencia, a coastal lagoon and one of the most significant wetlands in the western Mediterranean, understood not only as a physical or geographical space, but as the result of a superposition of strata corresponding to successive and changing historical circumstances, economic and environmental factors that have shaped this place. The Albufera is interpreted here from its post-natural condition, where culture and nature are articulated in a system of interrelationships and tensions between the human and the non-human.
The exhibition is articulated as a journey through the representations of the Albufera from the middle of the 19th century to the present day, through various sets of works and documentation. The photographic project is presented The Albufera. Tangential vision (1985), a pioneering initiative promoted by the IVAM in the years before its opening. In that sense, the IVAM proposes a dialogue with its own genealogy, and assumes an active role as a promoter of artistic research—beyond curatorial—, supporting the development of six works made specifically for this exhibition by Bleda and Rosa, Paula García-Masedo, Lucia Loren, Teresa Marin Garcia, Jorge Ribalta and Jorge Yeregui. The distance of four decades between both projects allows us to observe both the transformations of the landscape and the changes in the ways of researching and representing a place through artistic practice.
Next to these proposals, the exhibition brings together representations of the Albufera from the mid-19th century to the present through photographs, documents and works of art that allow you to explore the different ways of living, imagine, explore or protect this unique ecosystem. From the romantic imaginations of the 19th century and traditional agricultural uses to the expansion of tourism, industrialization, ecological claims and contemporary challenges arising from the ecosocial crisis, the route gathers footprints, stories and vestiges that reveal the multiple layers that make up the Albufera, and which invite reflection on the possible futures of this common territory.
