An exhibition opening in Sagunto, Spain, offers a compelling reflection on the aftermath of devastating floods that impacted the Valencia region in recent years [[1]].*Personajes de la DANA: Ausencias y despedidas* (“Characters of the DANA: Absences and Farewells”) utilizes materials directly salvaged from the disaster-mud, debris, and damaged paper-to create a poignant memorial to those lost and a tribute to recovery efforts. The exhibition, currently on view at the Mario Monreal Cultural Center through January 31, seeks to sustain remembrance as the immediate crisis fades from public view.
A powerful new exhibition, Personajes de la DANA: Ausencias y despedidas (Characters of the DANA: Absences and Farewells), is now open at the Mario Monreal Cultural Center in Sagunto, Spain, and will run through January 31. The show, featuring over 50 pieces, transforms debris and mud from devastating floods into a poignant memorial for those affected and a tribute to the volunteers who provided aid.
The opening, held this past Friday, was attended by Sagunto’s Councilor for Culture, Ana María Quesada, Councilor for Civil Protection, Raúl Palmero, and artist Antonio García, along with other members of the local government.
According to García, “After the first anniversary of the catastrophe, media attention seems to have faded, but many concerns still haunt us. That’s why these works, created with residue and mud from the affected areas, will continue to demand the affection and attention that the victims deserve. It’s impossible to imagine what they experienced without putting ourselves in their shoes, especially when facing absences and the inability to say goodbye to loved ones.”
The exhibition’s curator, José Mayor Iborra, explained that the project reinforces the idea of resilience, viewed through a distinctly material lens. “The collection doesn’t attempt to ‘spectacularize’ the disaster. Instead, it activates a type of knowledge that arises from observing how matter responds to processes of deterioration, accumulation, or stabilization. In a context saturated with clean images and automated systems that process information without physical connection to the environment, these pieces remind us that understanding requires concrete operations: cutting, drying, assembling, consolidating.”
Personajes de la DANA: Ausencias y despedidas is, ultimately, a collection of works that transform pain into art—a visual metaphor where, despite the silence, the mud speaks volumes about an unresolved grief. Each piece is constructed from remnants transformed by the disaster: swollen papers, hardened sediments, displaced typography, and surfaces strained by uncontrollable processes.
“The pieces don’t seek to reconstruct the climatic episode or become a narration of the disaster. They work from its tangible effects: water edges, migrated pigments, layers that retract with drying, and delayed cuts that leave visible scars,” Mayor added. “Resilience is understood here from its strictly material dimension. It doesn’t allude to an idea of emotional recovery, but to the way paper, mud, or inks preserve the trace of what has happened to them.”
