Taranmana Latitude Art Residency, in collaboration with Kokos Huis and with the support of the International Artistic Creation Grant of the Government of Andorra, presents WHAT HOLDS, a solo exhibition by Alex Rispal.

 

The title refers to what persists through change: what remains when form transforms, when matter shifts state, and when time acts upon bodies and landscapes. Developed during Rispal’s residency in the Swartland, the project emerges from a direct engagement with the region’s wine culture, a territory shaped by the constant negotiation between human intervention and natural processes.

 

Palm-tree fragments collected in situ become a central material within the exhibition. Marked by growth, erosion, and exposure, these elements function as carriers of time and memory. They are organic structures that retain the traces of their environment, allowing the artist to reflect on the tension between permanence and fragility, control and transformation.

 

At the core of WHAT HOLDS is an expanded understanding of the chemigram as a material language. Rispal treats gelatin silver paper, light, and photographic chemicals not as neutral tools, but as physical matter with weight, resistance, and agency. Surfaces are folded, wrapped, and cut; images cease to operate solely as representations and become objects. Photography moves beyond the frame and occupies space, asserting itself as material presence.

 

The exhibition unfolds through a dialogue between wall-based works and sculptural pieces, articulated in a restrained palette of blacks, greys, and muted mauve and blue tones. Rather than seeking a fixed identity, the works explore how forms can be held while shifting states. Photographic materials, like bodies and landscapes, retain memory beyond visible image, accumulating layers of time, pressure, and transformation.

 

WHAT HOLDS thus proposes a reflection on what sustains us within constant change. An invitation to observe how matter, despite its fragility, preserves traces, structures, and presences that endure.