For this edition of Immaterial Salon Bombon proposes a video and sound work by Rosa Tharrats. Filmed for the most part in Cap de Creus and following the inspiration of Llull’s Book of Wonders, specifically the Book of Beasts, the piece investigates issues such as anthropomorphism and the relationship between the animal (human and non-human), the vegetable and mineral.

 

There is an element of dissociation between species (mineral-vegetable-animal), a fluidity represented by the constant presence of water, which unites all the transformations. Animals behave like plants, humans like beasts (or like stones; breathing like a stone). There is constant confusion, and a fluctuation between species of materials, spaces and forms of life. Also, there’s a subjectivity of the camera. It is filmed with camera in hand, very close to what is filmed, with some kind of sense of union, of fusion with what is observed. At the same time, the filming seeks a sensation beyond the purely visual, a tactile and enveloping element, hence the importance of sound in the piece. The camera appears as an extension of the body and the hand, a filter between the other and yourself.

 

Quadern de meravelles (Wonderbook) is a dreamy meditative journey by Rosa Tharrats in collaboration with Ariadna Ribas, Gabriel Ventura, Oma Totem, Artur Tort, 120 sheep in the Mas Duran of Cap de Creus, a starfish from Cadaqués, a floating fabric of a princess costume sleeve on a river near Prades, some wild carrots and stars.

Rosa Tharrats (b. 1983, based in Barcelona) mainly works with textiles. Her exploration is based on the premise that objects whether natural or artificial own an unexplored subjectiveness and can establish an organic relationship with us. She likes to think of matter as an identity of soul and vibration. Often she finds herself creating through the interaction between the mineral, the vegetable and the industrial realms. Other recurring themes in her work are transformation, symbiosis, process, compiling, grassroots, the junction of microscopic and macroscopic life, the visible and the invisible, research of the subtle balance between materials, and the contrast between that which is vaporous and that which is wild.

 

The majority of materials she works with come from her family archives or from an archive she has put together through time collecting fabrics, garments, wardrobes and other objects. The archive is an ongoing process that studies and acquires layers of meaning as time goes on. Her goal is to create sensorial narrations with layers of meaning through an interdisciplinary method that embraces fashion and visual arts.

 

She has studied graphic design in Elisava and fashion design at Instituto Europeo di Design. Her work has been shown at MACBA (2021-22), Bombon projects (2021, 2020), ARCO Madrid (2019), Heinrich Ehrhard Gallery Madrid, 2018), Apulia Land Art Festival (Italy, 2017) or Galería Cadaqués (Girona, 2015). Tharrats’ also collaborates with other artists in the costume design for their performances and movies such as Albert Serra, Jordi Colomer and Donna Huanca. She was awarded the prize Barcelona 080 for Emerging Designers and also she won a Gaudí Costume Prize for Liberté, by Albert Serra in 2019.

Bombon is a contemporary art gallery that opened in Barcelona in February 2017. The gallery was preceded by a project-space, Passatge Studio, which ran for 5 years (2012-2017), also in Barcelona but in a different location.

 

Bombon represents a limited number of contemporary artists, as many as it can embrace, but also collaborates with many others. The gallery is interested in local and international art practices that reflect a social, political and emotional contemporary sensitivity, as well as in reclaiming artists from older generations. Bombon’s mission is to generate a space for artistic projects to take place, favouring and strengthening dialogue between the artists and their audience.

 

The goal to create a sense of community is developed through the exhibitions at the gallery and through the different events programmed in and outside the space. Presentations, talks, screenings, performances or meals, among others, are a key part of the programme.

 

For Bombon it is crucial to create synergies between the local and the international scene. The participation of the gallery in international events, such as art fairs (NADA Miami, MATERIAL, LISTE, ARCO Madrid and Lisboa, ART-O-RAMA, SUNDAY ART FAIR, ARTISSIMA) is a platform to give visibility to our artists and explore new contexts.

 

Bombon projects represents the artists: Anna Dot (1991), Pere Llobera (1970),

Mari Eastman (1970), Josep Maynou (1980), Joana Escoval (1982), Enric Farrés

Duran (1983), Aldo Urbano (1991), Jordi Mitjà (1970), Rosa Tharrats (1983) and

collaborated among many others.