Clima Fitness is curated by Maite Borjabad, articulated by the space installation conceived by Common Accounts (Igor Bragado and MilesGertler) expanding his essay Planet Fitness (2019), and hosts works by Faysal Altunbozar, Itziar Barrio, Ibiye Camp, Irati Inoriza, Mary Maggic

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From July 6, 2023 to July 30, 2024.

In the face of a severely damaged relationship between the human species and the planet, apocalyptic stances tend to flourish. It seems that thinking about the future in these terms is more comfortable than acknowledging the possibilities for change that we have at our disposal. We appear to be more prepared to envision the end of the world than to imagine a different one. The apocayptic, inaction, and resignation have become intertwined and may seem like the only ways to generate images of the future. In contrast to this, optimism becomes a radical and empowering demand that might enable change. Resisting a complacent pessimism in declaring that the ecological emergency involves such a degree of systemic complexity that the self barely has agency. Clima Fitness proposes a rehearsal of generative and proactive critical thinking that explores the diffuse and malleable limits of adaptive, mutant and symbiotic capacities. Operating across the interrelations and learnings of postmodern ecology, ecofeminist theories, biology and speculative fiction, this project embarks on activating and thinking from the many critical interactions that shape our world and the inter-species entanglements of which it is composed.

Maite Borjabad

Common Accounts [is an experimental design studio based in Madrid and Toronto directed by Igor Bragado (Lives and works in Madrid, Spain) and Miles Gertler (Toronto, Canada, 1990. Lives and works in Toronto, Canada)]. Planet Fitness (2023) is the installation that spatially structures the entire hall through large-scale devices that in turn host pieces by other artists. In repurposing aesthetic languages related to work, resources and materials for anatomical adaptation, the devices perform in a multiplicity of styles and suggestive functionalities that range from vehicle to trailer to gym machine, all at once. The installation’s formalization takes its inspiration from funerary parades, catafalques, and rituals serving the design and construction of the body.

Faysal Altunbozar (Istanbul, Turkey 1993. Lives and works in London, UK), is an interdisciplinary artist who creates discrete objects and spatial interventions that layer cultural histories and playful allusions to the body in order to reframe dichotomies of power and pleasure. Throughout Altunbozar’s work materiality and form intimate micronarratives that are rich in detail and yet remain shrouded in ambiguity. Both seductive and unpretentious, the visual tactility of these objects invites an extended reflection on what it means to share space when we define ourselves in distinction to another

Itziar Barrio (Itziar Barrio (Bilbao, Spain 1976. Lives and works in New York, USA) has fostered an artistic practice that emerges from the idea that language is knowledge and approaches reality as something being constantly recreated. She brings up questions that are not overtly social or political, but that deal with the tendency of the human mind to create iconic and associative characters out of its surroundings and the effects of those associations on society. Itziar Barrio develops an original deconstruction of the icons and social codes that inhabit our daily lives, revisits their original meanings and creates a new fiction/mythology around them.

Ibiye Camp (London, UK, 1991. Lives and works in London) is an interdisciplinary artist whose work engages with technology, trade and material within the African Diaspora, to rethink the role that postcolonial frameworks and technology play in the production of the built environment. She utilises architectural tools to create 3D models, sound and video, accompanied by augmented reality. This is in order to highlight the biases and conflicts of technology.

Irati Inoriza (Balmaseda, Spain 1992. Lives and works in Bilbao, Spain) has been developing a body of work that is situated in an arena that operates between visual essay and the production of artistic ecosystems. Through contextual relationships and taking a stance, she challenges established notions of individual and collective construction of identity in a technified and ever-changing society. By establishing relationships within space, her practice explores the intersection between research, contextualization, and how these translate into images.

Mary Maggic Mary Maggic (Los Angeles, USA 1991. Lives and works in Vienna, Austria) is a non-binary Chinese-American artist whose work spans amateur science, workshops as research methodology, performance, installation, documentary film, and speculative fiction. Inspired by the official Olympic motto, Faster, Higher, Stronger – Together, this work features human-powered exercise machines that supply energy to a bioreactor that maximizes the production of microbial cellulose from SCOBY, symbiotic cultures of bacteria and yeast that are found in kombucha.

Project manager of the instalation has Andrea Muniáin and the lighting design has been carried out by Oscila. The installation has been produced by the company ArtWorks, the audiovisual service is provided by the company Zenit Audio, the assembly of the exhibited works has been carried out by the company Ademobe Make. The graphic identity of the project has been created by Kiwi Bravo.