An Ode to the Mountain

Concept

The project "An Ode to the Mountain" arose from direct contact with the natural environments of Cantabria. The visits to the caves of El Pendo, Las Monedas, El Castillo, Covalanas, and the Neo cave of Altamira, were the starting point; caves millions of years old, world heritage sites containing Palaeolithic cave art dated between 65,000 and 10,000 BC.

To come into direct contact with the origins.
To explore the bowels of a mountain.
To experience the geological archive of the world.
To witness absolute darkness.

The project consists of a two-channel video and performance exploring the experience of the mountain and what it represents to me. The works present a homage to the mountain through a ritual of gratitude for that place of lightless clarity within me to which the mountain speaks without words, inviting me to reconnect. An attempt to enter into contact and dialogue with the natural environment through sensitivity, inviting the viewer to reconnect with the here-and-now, to take refuge in the eternal present through the mineral richness of the earth.

Going into the mountain shows me the transition from resistance to surrender, from chaos to silence, from weight to lightness. By inhabiting the mountain I discovered how to inhabit myself. The video is an ode to the mountain, an encounter, an intertwining between the mountain and myself through a dance of initiation into contemplation and presence. A dance that approaches a Katsugen Undo, a spontaneous movement that gives way to fluidity, that puts the accent on what the body knows, allowing me to surrender myself to the mountain, that teaches me again and again the way back to myself.