After the media blackout that started in the summer of 2013, Egypt only makes the news due to the constant terrorist attacks, but we continue to know very little of the consequences of a failed revolution. How did the lives of millions of people who protested in Tahrir square develop? What events have marked the country in the past 6 years? How does its future look?
Without having a historicist intention, Molinos Gordo tries to partially shed some light on the complex current situation. As a nod to the Napoleonic encyclopaedia Description de l’Égypte, which illustrated the country at the beginning of the XIXth century, this exhibition follows the same three premises of the colonial document, in order to do an exercise of archaeology of the present in which we can revisit the state of Ancient Egypt, Modern Egypt and its Natural History.
To speak of Egypt is to speak of the World. Masr, its arabic name, literally means “country” and is usually followed by the tag line Om El Dunia (Mother of the World) to highlight its role as origin of all the civilizations. The aim of this project is not to criticize this beautiful nation, but to reveal the process of social, spiritual and ecological disintegration that Egypt and a much larger geographical area is being put through.
In her practice, Molinos questions the categories that define “innovation” in mainstream discourses today, exploring the different forms of dominance in the intellectual enquire from the urban to the rural.
She employs installation, photography, video, sound and other media to examine the rural realm driven by a strong desire to understand the value and complexity of its cultural production, as well as the burdens that keeps it invisible and marginalized, often disregarded as folkloric or mythological.
The main focus of her work is contemporary peasantry. Her understating of the figure of the small or medium farmer is not merely as food producer but as cultural agent, responsible for both perpetuating traditional knowledge and for generating new expertise to meet current challenges. She has produced work reflecting on land usage, nomad architecture, farmers strikes, bureaucracy on territory, transformation of rural labour, biotechnology and global food trade. Asunción won the Sharjah Biennial Prize 2015 with her project WAM (World Agriculture Museum). Her work has been exhibited at venues including MUSAC (León), CA2M (Madrid) Matadero (Madrid), La Casa Encendida (Madrid), Delfina Foundation (London), ARNOLFINI (Bristol), The Townhouse Gallery (Cairo), Darat Al Funun (Amman), Tranzit (Prague), ART BASEL (Miami), Cappadox Festival (Uchisar-Turkey), The Finnish Museum of Photography (Helsinki) and Museo Carrillo Gil (Mexico) among others.
Molinos obtained her B.F.A. from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, where she also pursued her Master in Contemporary Art Theory and Practice. She is currently studying Anthropology and Ethnography at UNED (Spain). Molinos is currently represented by Travesia Cuatro gallery