The University of Alicante and the Juan Gil-Albert Institute of Culture in Alicante are organising the 23rd Contemporary Art Encounters Competition. The exhibition will be held from 16 June to 24 July 2023, once again at the MUA, University of Alicante Museum. From among the more than 130 artistic proposals submitted to the competition, both national and international, 23 were selected for their great disciplinary and conceptual diversity, with Basque artist Pilar Soberón receiving an Honourable Mention.

The members of the jury are: Juan Bautista Roselló (Governing Board of the IAC Juan Gil-Alber Institute), Susana Guerrero (artist and professor at the UMH), Remedios Navarro (MUA technician), Rosa María Castell (MACA curator), Mario Paul Martínez (UMH Arts Research Centre), Pilar Tébar – Cultural Director of the IAC – and Amparo Koninck – Secretary General of the Alicante Provincial Council.

The selected works provide testimony to a turbulent and complex period, full of tensions, uncertainties and vulnerabilities, but also challenges and opportunities. They respond to the social, vital, political and environmental concerns we all share. 

In the exhibition, we are confronted with the dehumanisation of armed conflicts, censorship, consumerism and the commodification of our contemporary societies, the recovery of the memory of the first feminist struggles, the discriminatory biases of artificial intelligence, and the overexploitation of natural resources and the fragility of ecosystems.

The work ‘Bosque Esencial’ (Essential Forest) by Basque artist Pilar Soberón focuses on the deterioration of the Mediterranean Forest and the disappearance of oak trees from our forests, causing damage to the land and harming our natural and cultural heritage. The overexploitation of the forest destroys biodiversity and leaves us with a Earth suffocated by the technosphere or overexploited by intensive agriculture, to the detriment of the wealth provided by the native forest, with oaks, holm oaks, yews, etc. Soberón visibilises the consciousness of the forest and the sentience of nature by moving us from exploitation to participation. 

The current relevance and sharpness of these reflections cannot leave us indifferent; this commitment, sensitivity and empathy are contagious, inviting us to enter creative universes where we can become aware, evoke 

Pilar Soberón’s project is the result of an artistic residency titled “Haritz” (oak) organised by ART1307 Cultural Institution and carried out in Naples in 2022, a residency subsidised through a competitive contest by the Basque Government’s Etxepare Institute. The work is being exhibited to the public for the first time at Napoli-Afragola High Speed Train Station, in the exhibition”‘Geometrie organicche” (2022), curated by Cynthia Penna and organised by ART1307. It has subsequently been shown in solo exhibitions at “Itzalpean” (2023) in Eibar, Gipuzkoa, and “Axis Mundi” (2024) at Galería Vanguardia Bilbao.

MUA Museum (University of Alicante Museum). Alicante 

University of Alicante & Juan Gil-Albert Alicante Institute of Culture

16 June 2023 – 24 July 2023

EAC COMPETITION 2023

https://www.iacjuangilalbert.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/2023-Catalogo-EAC-XXIII_int.pdf catalogue

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