Between Furnace and Stones (2018) (2025)
Installation. Refractory ceramic bricks and stainless Steel
220 x 25 x 10 cm
BA Collection
Registration No. 2018.401.1
In the strata of sedimentary rock that covers the beaches of Getxo (Vizcaya), in Tunelboka and Gorrondatxe, there is a stratigraphic system that is not only geological, but also cultural. The fragments of rock carry the badge of its material history. A history that takes us back to the time of Altos Hornos de Vizcaya and la Socledad General de Productos Cerámicos, whose marks can still be seen in fragments of fireproof bricks and other manufactured products: “Suarry”; “Uriarte Hermanos y Compañía”; “Procersa”; “Glenboig”.
Between 1906 and 1970, Sociedad Altos Hornos de Vizcaya dumped more than 125 million tonnes of industrial waste into the Cantabrian Sea, which lle exposed today over a slaq rock stratum from the foundry. Its remarkable level of hardness and compaction (given that thelr materials of origin have been dated between forty and one hundred and fifteen years old), they exist today not only as proof of the Industrial Revolution in the estuan of Bilbao, but also as fossils for the new geological Anthropocene era. Tunelboka and Gorrandatxe form a geological record reference on a global level in which the footprint that the human activity has left at the stratigraphic level and the way human activities are changing the systems of planetary functioning can be studied.
Miguel Sbastida graduated from a Master in Fine Arts at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, with a scholarship from La Caixa Foundation. He completed a Bachelor in Flne Arts from Universidad Complutense of Madrid after his fellow studies to Holland and Canada. His works have been shown internationally at venues such as, the Zhou E Art Center, ARCO, Korea Foundation Gallery, Hyde Park Art Center, Expo Chicago, Centro del Carme, MUA, Sullivan Galleries o Laboral Centro de Arte.