nora aurrekoetxea etxebarria

my studio-based practice departs from a sculptural way of building installations as a relational space, a system where unpredicted dialogues happen in interdependency between
objects
space
and bodies
creating layers of meaning where the instability of narratives becomes the structure of it.

I depart unexpectedly from a life event, a fetish, an intuition, developing the work through its materiality and form, trying to reach its own autonomy, following the process and embracing the accident, even if the narrative emerges later or in parallel.

I am particularly intrigued by questions related to the emotional aspects of human
interactions in the intimate sphere, our relationship with the space and our attachment to objects from a sistemic perspective.

I often choose objects related to the body, or with the absence of it, as a point of departure. References to architecture and domestic objects allow me to look for tension or/and balance between discourses around structure, function and ornament using hard building materials and delicate intimate ones.

I use experiences in an auto-ethnographical way as a raw material to explore the personal
and the collective. Leading workshops and text-based exercises allow me to reach a collaborative way of sharing, questioning and experimenting with language within a particular group as a methodology expanding my sculptural practice towards text and performance.
 
linguistic, material and relational aspects force encounters and /or mismatches between experiece and objects, an inner tension emerges in this process
a thing that is still being born and is only recognisable by an active listening of the making

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nora aurrekoetxea is a basque artist based in Amsterdam. Graduated in Fine Arts at the University of The Basque Country, holds an MA in Sculpture at Royal College of Art, London. She has been artist in residence at Cité Internationale des Arts (Paris), Solomon R. Guggenheim (New York), BilbaoArte (Bilbao) and Paradise Air (Tokyo). She has received grants from Basque Government production grant, Fundación Botín, het cultuurs, AC/E Accion Cultural España and Stichting Elise Mathilde Fonds and been awarded with prizes such as ARCO Madrid, IX. Interational Art prize FMJJ, Gure Artea prize and Generaciones 2022.

Solo shows include Intersticio (London) and Juan Silió (Madrid) and independent spaces like Racoon (Barcelona) and P////AKT (Amsterdam). Group shows in galleries include Travesía Cuatro (Guadalajara, Mexico), Hauser & Wirth (Menorca), Pedro Cera (Lisbone), L21 (Mallorca) and institutions such as Foundation Fiminco (Paris), Centro Botín (Santander), Ca2m (Madrid), SUPER preview (London), HAUS WIEN (Wien), Mutter (Amsterdam), Omstand (Arnhem), Tabakalera (Donostia), La Casa Encendida (Madrid), Museo Guggenheim (Bilbao), Fundación Oteiza (Alzuza) and Blue Project Foudation (Barcelona).

Her works are part of the permanent collection of Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, ARTIUM- Basque Museum Centre of Contemporary Art, Fundación María José Jove, ARCO Foundation, CA2M Museum and Botín Foundation among others.