The EPHEMERAL Installation is one of the results of a series of activities realized by the Spatial Transformation Workshop – Blanca Back To Life, an experimental project aiming at a thorough understanding of the context through different artistic approaches.

Blanca, a small town huddling at the foot of Peña Negra - a black volcanic rock - is reinventing parts of its structure, thanks to the impulses from artists’ platform AADK Spain.

The EPHEMERAL Installation is the outcome of the cooperation between curators Lorenza Manfredi, Abraham Hurtado, platform AADK Spain Centro Negra and TCA Think Tank, together with students and professionals from Spain, Italy, Germany, Norway, India and Czech Republic. The intensive 3-day workshop had created the installation through the mountains and ruins of Blanca, exploring the qualities of the context around Peña Negra, insisting in understanding the context, attracting visitors and starting a long process of revaluation of the abandoned areas.

The Installation is composed of several areas, each one of them connected with a specific experiential quality of space. From the top of the mountain, a roll of textile is released to travel through the narrow and steep alley in between the ruins. Here the installation became a dense place to explore. The textile divides into 2 elements with curves to layout the space around the entrances of the ruins. The folds vary in size, from full scale, to allow the interaction with more people, to a small extent for a solitary, contemplative experience of nature, small portions of structures and texture of materials. Natural elements change the space, the wind modifies and moves the textile, creating unexpected shapes in interaction with the arid environment.

The place - once dead - re-animates and fills with movement in the little-exposed street. The area is to be explored, observed and attracted to. The Installation is to be examined from various viewpoints around the valley, from the other side of the mountain and from the main square of the village. The Installation terminates with the joining of elements back to one section, rising on top of the ruins. With helium balloons, it is raised suspending the textile.

This is a participatory installation, a tool to integrate the interaction between creators and users, who are invited to add elements and to affect the height of the structure as direct alteration.

The entire system reveals 3 main spatial compositions shaped by a single textile element, exploring different qualities of space. The ‘line’ is an unreachable space visible from a distance, its strong effect created an EPHEMERAL landmark, visually connecting people’s attention from afar. Space then evolves into a physical connection made of folds, stairs, doors, bushes, an unexpected track to cross through and interact with. Eventually, the EPHEMERAL structure floats over the heads in variable positions, suspended by pure shapes, suggesting continuity between the structure and space around, inviting the observer to stay and reflect about the actual and future possibilities of the area.