For her, everything started in the water. "Every summer, with my father, we sail for a month on a sailboat called Socarrao. In those long hours of sailing, I started taking photographs when I was a teenager." Beatriz Mínguez de Molina sips her second oat milk latte of the day, while the Bar fills with the sound of the morning news. Leaning against the bar, the artist smiles, rolling the American Spirit cigarette she will smoke later.
"My father is an architect and my mother has a degree in Art History… so I studied both!", she laughs. She started, in fact, with Art History, "with the idea of setting up exhibitions," but her repeated pilgrimages to museums like the CCCB made her realize, very soon, "that those who designed the exhibitions were architects." This, coupled with the limited job opportunities in her career, pushed her to enter the world of architecture. She ended up studying it in London, "at the Architectural Association, from which I highlight its totally empirical teaching model."
And here two major turning points in her career take place. The first, interning with the prestigious architect Benedetta Tagliabue. "I continue to do many projects for her, and she is, for me, my mentor, my great professional reference, the woman who believed more in me than I did myself and who helped me overcome my insecurities, my shyness." What is said, a teacher and friend.
The second turning point comes with her final degree project, in which she investigated, along with a study group, video as a tool for architectural representation. "From that came a short film, The swimming pool, which my friend Diego Rodríguez, director of several film festivals, selected for a short film competition." The work, which explores the state of weightlessness, the notion of floating, derived from rhythm and sound, won three awards and marked a before and after for Beatriz, who took a plunge from the world of architecture to that of video art. And she realized that, in both oceans, she swam wonderfully.
Swimming in different directions at once
Suddenly, Beatriz Mínguez de Molina realized that she worked for architecture studios ---specializing in ephemeral architecture, like ocean waves---, and that in summer she took advantage to record a lot, hours and hours that ended up composing an extensive aquatic archive, and that later, during the rest of the year, she edited to give shape to her video installations. He delved into different seas at once, swimming contemporaneously in different directions."In 2008, I debuted with my first exhibition at the H20 gallery", a place named after the chemical composition of water, promoted by Joaquín Ruiz-Millet, "who is a unifier of graphic and photographic talent in Barcelona". Since then, she regularly exhibits in this gallery, while taking her videos and installations to festivals such as FIVA, Bideodromo, Loop, Figueira Art Film Festival or Choreocope, among a thousand others.
Her current project, Hermenéutica de una DANA (Hermeneutics of a DANA), investigates the during and after of the catastrophe, "of this collective wound that the 2024 floods left in Valencia". The first phase of this work is exhibited at the TPK Art i Pensament Contemporani space in L'Hospitalet, until April 24. "I am now working on the second phase of this representation of the disaster, photographing the daily life of the places affected by the DANA twenty months later, which I will exhibit later," she announces.
The least harsh city
Despite being born in Barcelona, the artist and architect did not live in the city until she was fourteen. "We lived in Madrid, for us Barcelona was where we came on dates like Christmas or Easter." And she closes her eyes, remembering the pleasure it gave her to enter through Diagonal, "after seven hours of travel, that avenue of palm trees welcomed us with the contrast of the golden light of dusk and the warm, Mediterranean air, entering through the window," she almost feels like she's there.Now she is just another Barcelonian, concerned about the inaccessibility of housing, about bars for expats and tourists "and about the damned tags and graffiti on restored wooden doors, which really annoy me". She sips the last drops of her coffee, before concluding: "Even so, I will tell you that I have lived in Madrid, London and Rotterdam and, although this is also a big city, it is the least harsh of those I have been in."
--- Less harsh and with excellent gastronomy, like our Bar. Lunchtime is approaching and perhaps you might fancy trying something from our kitchen.
Beatriz Mínguez de Molina does not suppress an even wider smile than the one that has accompanied her throughout the morning.
"The daily menu, without a doubt, interests me very much," she says, her eyes shining.