DATA SHEET
Title / Título:
Malva Marina
Team members / Miembros del equipo:
Miguel Mendoza Malpartida (ES) artist / artista; Olga Albillos Castillo (ES) artist / artista; Triana Sánchez Hevia (ES) artist / artista; Víctor Fernández Calderón (ES) engineer / ingeniero
Scientist / Científico:
Jorge Tirado Caballero (ES) Neurosurgeon / Neurocirujano
Virgen del Rocío Hospital, Seville (Andalusian Health Service, SNS) / Virgen del Rocío – Virgen Macarena, Sevilla (Servicio Andaluz de Salud, SNS)
Seed / Semilla:
“A prisioner brain: cranial expansion in a chessboard pattern” / “Un cerebro prisionero: la expansión craneal en tablero de ajedrez”
Technique / Técnica:
Reactive electronic installation, sculpture made with PETG and wood / Instalación electrónica reactiva, escultura con PETG y madera
Dimensions / Dimensiones:
120 x 180 x 60 cm
SEED
Ventricular shunt systems are a surgical procedure that has been used for decades to manage various pathologies. As a side effect, they can cause the skull to become “small” for the patient’s needs. This is why we refer to craniocerebral disproportion. At this point, the structures within the skull begin to exert great pressure, generating the symptoms described above. “Cranial expansion” provides mobility to the skull, allowing it to harmoniously return to the size needed by the individual, acting as a pressure valve that relieves the patient’s symptoms.
THE VISION OF THE CREATORS OF THE WORK
Malva Marina arises from a lingering question: how to make visible what has been condemned to the margins? In what way does that which aches, that slips through the folds of the human condition, vibrate and gesture? Hydrocephalus, a silenced neurological disorder, here becomes a symbolic device: a meeting point between body, technology, and memory. The work takes its name from Malva Marina Reyes (1934–1943), daughter of the poet Pablo Neruda (1904–1973), victim of a double violence: that of her illness and the contempt of her own father. Within her dwells stigma, denial, the unspoken. This project is an offering to her memory, and to that of so many other lives omitted by the hegemonic narrative. Through light, movement, and code, these absences now become presence.
This project is an offering to her memory, and to that of so many other lives omitted by the hegemonic narrative. Through light, movement, and code, these absences now become presence. Inspired by a surgical technique developed in Seville — the so-called chessboard cut — which fragments the skull so that the brain, in its infant plasticity, can allow fluids to flow again and better adapt to the brain’s size, we decided to translate that gesture into a kinetic language.
Our installation consists of PETG panels connected to servomotors that, through sensors and algorithms, respond to the presence of the viewer. The body of the work, like the intervened body, transforms, pulses, breathes. Within it, we seek a space where the organic dialogues with the electronic, and fragility takes form through a technical and conceptual development that has been entirely collaborative. Malva Marina does not represent, but seeks to embody the imagination of those possible flows; where illness inscribes its invisible marks.
CURATOR'S VISION OF THE WORK
This installation draws a powerful parallel between the physical mechanisms of the brain and the psychological conditions of human life. Just as an excess of cerebrospinal fluid can compress the brain and disrupt its function, the work responds dynamically to human proximity, transforming the viewer into both catalyst and disruptor. As we approach, the structure tenses—its elements accelerate, searching for release, while a sharp, high-frequency sound suggests a system on the verge of rupture. Step back, and the atmosphere shifts: motion slows and a sense of fragile equilibrium is restored.
The artwork asks how close we can come to systems, biological or social, before our presence becomes invasive. It reflects on the limits of containment: what happens when internal pressure exceeds what the vessel can hold?
Pressure State does not simply react, it feels. And in that feedback loop, we are reminded of our impact, and our responsibility to the spaces, internal and external, we inhabit.
Con la colaboración de la Fundación Española para la Ciencia y la Tecnología – Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades @fecyt_ciencia
