Cristina Iglesias will create “a poetic, physical and sensory experience in the lighthouse on Santa Clara Island”

2018 January 18

• The San Sebastian artist reveals the details of the sculptural work she is preparing for the lighthouse on Santa Clara Island, which she will donate to the city: "it should make us more aware of nature and sea preservation".
• Also as part of the MUGAK Biennial programme, the award-winning US-architect Alex Anmahian reflects on the nature of borders.

Cristina Iglesias, one of the most distinguished Basque sculptors, explained to the public of San Sebastian the details of the project she is currently working on, aimed at transforming the lighthouse on Santa Clara Island into a public sculpture that will become an iconic landmark in the city. The talk took place as part of the events of the I Basque Country International Architecture Biennial MUGAK, organised by the Basque Government. Just before, the US-architect Alex Anmahian offered a lecture entitled "Overcoming the Limits".

During her lecture, Cristina Iglesias reviewed her previous work linking it to the ideas she is considering for her work on the island in La Concha Bay, which focuses on the sea as a common denominator. “My intention is to create a poetic, physical and sensory experience that should makes us more aware of the need to preserve nature in general and specially the sea", she explained.

The artist plans to transform the lighthouse in a public sculpture that will reproduce figuratively La Concha Bay background. The art work will have a large bronze vase as main piece and show the changes produced by tides.

As she explained, "part of the piece will be suspended indoors”; besides, “a walkway is going to create different points of view both inwards and outwards”. The piece will also be provided with natural light, through a series of skylights, and artificial light, as well as sound.

Iglesias showed one of the first models she is currently working on for the lighthouse on Santa Clara Island and claimed that she wants to "connect it to the Aquarium” of San Sebastian, located facing the lighthouse. During the implementation of the project, the Basque artist will combine her studio work based in Madrid and London with visits to San Sebastian. The transformation process of the lighthouse will take one year and is planned to be finished by spring 2019.

The Gipuzkoa artist showed her 1997 Amberes work, in which she first used water, as well as other works in El Prado (Madrid), Minas Gerais (Brazil), the Botin Centre (Santander) and the Bloomberg building in London, among others. In Toledo, she also built a similar vase to the one she is creating for San Sebastian. 

The sculpture will be owned by the city thanks to an agreement including the donation of the work and its whole design and supervision process, which was signed a few months ago between the artist herself and the Mayor of San Sebastian, Eneko Goia.  The Mayor also took part in the talk, explaining that "the work on Santa Clara is the idea of a genius and will be one of the city's main landmarks in the next years. San Sebastian will be different the day it is finished."

Iglesias will thus add her work to the art landscape on San Sebastian's coastline, composed by "El Peine del Viento" (The Comb of the Wind) by Eduardo Chillida, "Construcción Vacía" (Void Construction) by Jorge Oteiza and "La Paloma de la Paz" (Peace Dove) by Nestor Basterretxea.

Alex Anmahian, "Overcoming The Limits"

In his lecture, the US-architect Alex Anmahian offered his vision on the nature of borders. Under the title "Overcoming The Limits", Anmahian used the limitations faced by architects as a guiding thread through his discourse, giving the example of several works his studio has developed in different parts of the world. “Everyone who works at my studio, works with provocation; and the term border is totally linked to provocation”, he explained.

During his lecture, Anmahian unfolded four of the projects developed by his studio in the last years: an art centre in Jordan, an observatory, the building of an archaeology institute in the USA and an office building in Turkey.

Invited by the Habic Cluster - Association of Basque Hospitality, Wood & Design Companies, the expert referred to the nature of borders "as inspiring and generative elements within a design process".