Miguel Alejos

La distancia más tierna (The More Tender Distance)

La distancia más tierna is a research project that utilises the CV-500 road and its architecture as a narrative device to analyse, through an affective lens, the tensions that beset the Valencian coastline. Conceptualised as a scar, this infrastructure connects urban metabolism with the memory of ecological resistance, in a landscape where rice fields and marshlands collide with apartment blocks and nightclubs. The project focuses on the failed 1960s Dehesa del Saler housing development which was opposed by the “El Saler per al poble” (“El Saler for the People”) citizens’ movement in what was one of the foundational milestones of environmentalism in Spain. Through archival research, a road movie, and sculptural essays, the project formalises a cosmology of materials that questions the idea of progress and tourism policies linked to ecosystem deterioration, opening up the possibility of envisioning anachronistic presents and transforming the contradictory elements of the landscape into structures of imagination.

Bio

Miguel Alejos (Valencia, 1995) is an artist, publisher, and cultural manager. He has a degree in Fine Arts and a master’s degree in Research and Creation in Art. He has received scholarships and awards from organisations such as INJUVE, the Bilbaoarte Foundation, the Güell Foundation (Barcelona), the Jiser Association (Valencia), and the 23rd University of Valencia Public Art Exhibition Award. His work has been exhibited in venues such as the La Panera Art Centre (Lleida), the Montehermoso Cultural Centre (Vitoria), the CarrerasMugica Gallery (Bilbao), the Huarte Centre, the Elbirou Gallery (Tunis), UMPRUM (Prague), FIG Bilbao, and the ABC Museum, (Madrid). Simultaneously, he has worked as a curator and cultural manager in institutions such as Can Felipa (Barcelona), the Cultural Action Department of the Spanish Cultural Centre (CCE) in Montevideo, and the Finestrat Public Art programme. Since 2022, he has co-directed the Brillo editorial project alongside Rocío Agudo.