Eighty-seven projects from different territories and countries were submitted to the new call for applications for this programme of stays for artists and researchers, the only one of its kind in the autonomous community. The winner's research will focus on the rare earth prospecting carried out in the 1970s in Bierzo Alto and Ancares.
The fifth edition of the ‘NUDO/KNOT’ artistic grant, organised by the Fundación Cerezales Antonino y Cinia (FCAYC) together with the Instituto Leonés de Cultura (ILC) of the Provincial Council, has been awarded to the project entitled “Montañas raras” by the Leonese artist Laura Tabarés.
Among the 87 projects received, six finalists opted to win the fifth edition of a call for entries, which this year focused on the mountain as the main theme of the work. In this case, it is a film investigation that explores the first prospecting for rare earths - where minerals, other technologies and local mythologies coexist - in relation to the discovery of the prehistoric coron made by a pupil of the rural teacher and writer from Bierzo, Felisa Rodríguez, in the same area.
The project is based on two events that took place in the 1970s in the northwest of León: the first prospecting for rare earths - the current strategic mineral - and the discovery by a young girl of an archaeological idol linked to a 3,000-year-old mining crown.
Through a subterranean imaginary, the research proposes to access these open physical thresholds between basins and slopes, between the imagined and the lived. The project is based on Felisa Rodriguez's ecological pedagogical programme and the literary framework of speculative archaeology.
In this way, ‘Rare Mountains’ is built through collaborative tours and collective creation spaces. These include field trips to industrial ruins, the collection of real sounds as well as the creation of new ones using found materials and three-dimensional co-creation workshops.
Laura Tabarés' research culminates in the production of an audiovisual that will be presented at the end of her research residency at FCAYC and ILC and will subsequently be shown at festivals, exhibitions and contemporary art shows. The aim is to open up cross-border dialogues.
The jury for the ‘NUDO/KNOT’ 2025 grant was made up of Zaida Llamas (general coordinator of FCAYC), Luis Martínez (head of Sound and Listening at FCAYC), Emilio Manuel Martínez Morán (deputy for Culture and vice-president of the ILC) and Emilio Gancedo Fernández (coordinator of Projects at the ILC). All of them unanimously valued the soundness of the winning project, being a proposal that is perfectly contextualised in the rural environment of the province of León, with an innovative and situated methodology, and whose contribution to the proposed theme combines historical elements with an updated and contemporary vision. The analysis of extractive processes that marked the province throughout the 20th century and the current drift of technologies, as well as the recovery of a figure such as Felisa Rodríguez, led the jury to highlight the originality, relevance and rigour of the project.
Both the Instituto Leonés de Cultura and the Cerezales Antonino y Cinia Foundation were positive about the high number of participants, with a great variety of projects coming from European and Latin American countries and with an age range between twenty-two and fifty-nine years old.
The research, which will last a total of eight months, has an endowment of 8,000 euros for the development of the research, as well as support for transport, accommodation and meals. The artist, who will carry out her research during four stays over the period of the grant, will be monitored and mediated by the FCAYC and ILC teams. This is currently the only research and creation residency grant of its kind in the entire autonomous community and one of the most important at national level.
About Laura Tabarés (1991, León)
She develops her artistic practice in new media and the production of laboratories and situated educational and cultural projects, articulating participatory processes and artistic co-creation. From internet folklore and speculative fiction, she addresses issues related to feminised knowledge and dreaming peripheral futures.
She is currently co-coordinator of the space for research, artistic creation and cultural production Leira (Lugo). She directs the mobile laboratory of video art, technologies and territory: peripheral vision: local network of counter-visual exploration. Associate lecturer at the USC. She designs and mediates the artistic creation programmes with teenagers Correspondencias digitales: narrativas audiovisuales y nuevos medios and Secuencias: Creación audiovisual y prácticas digitales, both promoted by the Centro de arte FMJJ (Coruña).
He has been artist-in-residence in the project Ramas.Tecnologías y territorio of Plataforma MAL, IMMATERIAL in Tabakalera, Ayudas INJUVE para la Creación Joven 2021, FEMTEK residency in Bilbao, etc. His work has been shown in group exhibitions and official national and international selections such as Digerati Media Festival (USA), Wench (IND), Intersección, Curtocircuito, Cineteca-Matadero, Compás88 (MEX), Hyperhouse, Erratum gallery (Berlin), DONE - Fotocolectania, Plataforma de audiovisual HAMACA, CCCB, etc. From 2019 to 2024 she was part of the artistic and cultural production collective Ontologías Feministas, participating in TEA Tenerife, La Casa Encendida, Centro Cultural Kirchner (ARG), Bienal de Pensamiento (BCN), WOS Festival, Intermediae-MACA (UPM), etc.
She graduated in Fine Arts from the University of Vigo (2013). Master in Conceptual and Artistic Photography by EFTI (Madrid, 2014) and Master in Research in Art and Creation by UCM (2015).