Asunción Molinos Gordo is a researcher and visual artist. Born in 1979 in Aranda de Duero, Burgos, Spain, her work is strongly influenced by disciplines such as anthropology, sociology and cultural studies, and by her own personal links to the rural milieu. In her art, Asunción Molinos questions the implicit and naturalised ideology of notions such as 'progress' and 'development', particularly highlighting the concept of 'innovation' that defines the dominant and hegemonic discourses of the present. Her interest in generating a less urban way of viewing progress is linked to her research on peasant thinking and the way in which it produces a shared identity across national and linguistic boundaries.
The artist's work focuses on the contemporary peasantry, and she regards the figure of the small or medium-sized farmer as a cultural agent. The farmer not only produces food, but is also responsible for generating new knowledge and for preserving and perpetuating traditional and ancestral knowledge in a world where 'de-peasantisation' and the rural exodus are an ever-growing problem. Asunción Molinos is motivated by a strong desire to understand the value and complexity of rural cultural output within the capitalist system, which keeps it strategically invisible and marginalised. She uses different artistic media, such as installation, photography, video and sound. She explores and presents the importance of intellectual work — which is at the same time physical — but also the close bonds of dependency that exist between specific contexts and places and the speculative manoeuvres of the global economy. In her extensive research, in different inter-connected projects, she reflects on land use, nomadic architectures, farmers' strikes, the effects of bureaucracy on the territory, the transformation of rural labour, biotechnology and the global seed and food trade. In all of these projects, she shows that peasant farming is not only an economic and subsistence practice, but also an essential way of inhabiting a world in crisis.
Asunción Molinos Gordo won the Sharjah Biennial prize in 2015 for her project WAM (World Agriculture Museum), and represented Spain at the XIII Havana Biennial, Cuba, in 2019. In 2020 she presented her project In Transit: Botany of Journey at Art Jameel's Artist Garden in Dubai.
Her work has been exhibited at the Victoria & Albert Museum (London, UK), Delfina Foundation (London, UK), Arnolfini (Bristol, UK), The Townhouse Gallery (El Cairo, Egypt), Darat Al Funun (Amman, Jordan), Tranzit (Prague, Czech Republic), Art Basel Miami Beach (USA), Cappadox Festival (Uçhisar, Turkey), The Finnish Museum of Photography (Helsinki, Finland), Carrillo Gil Museum (Mexico), MAZ Museo de Arte de Zapopan (Guadalajara, Mexico), He Art Museum (Guangdong, China), IVAM (Valencia, Spain), MUSAC (Leon, Spain), CA2M (Madrid, Spain), CAB (Burgos, Spain), Matadero (Madrid, Spain) and La Casa Encendida (Madrid, Spain), among other venues.
Represented by Travesía Cuatro Gallery (Madrid and Mexico), her work can be found in the collections of the Autonomous Government of Madrid; the Calosa Foundation in Mexico; Darat Al Funun in Amman, Jordan, and Francesca Thyssen's TBA21 in Vienna, Austria, among others.
She holds a BA in Philosophy and Arts from the Complutense University of Madrid, where she also obtained a Master's Degree in Theory and Practice of Contemporary Art. She is currently studying anthropology and ethnography at the UNED. Molinos Gordo lives and works between Spain and Egypt.
Asunción Molinos Gordo is a researcher and visual artist. Born in 1979 in Aranda de Duero, Burgos, Spain, her work is strongly influenced by disciplines such as anthropology, sociology and cultural studies, and by her own personal links to the rural milieu. In her art, Asunción Molinos questions the implicit and naturalised ideology of notions such as 'progress' and 'development', particularly highlighting the concept of 'innovation' that defines the dominant and hegemonic discourses of the present. Her interest in generating a less urban way of viewing progress is linked to her research on peasant thinking and the way in which it produces a shared identity across national and linguistic boundaries.
The artist's work focuses on the contemporary peasantry, and she regards the figure of the small or medium-sized farmer as a cultural agent. The farmer not only produces food, but is also responsible for generating new knowledge and for preserving and perpetuating traditional and ancestral knowledge in a world where 'de-peasantisation' and the rural exodus are an ever-growing problem. Asunción Molinos is motivated by a strong desire to understand the value and complexity of rural cultural output within the capitalist system, which keeps it strategically invisible and marginalised. She uses different artistic media, such as installation, photography, video and sound. She explores and presents the importance of intellectual work — which is at the same time physical — but also the close bonds of dependency that exist between specific contexts and places and the speculative manoeuvres of the global economy. In her extensive research, in different inter-connected projects, she reflects on land use, nomadic architectures, farmers' strikes, the effects of bureaucracy on the territory, the transformation of rural labour, biotechnology and the global seed and food trade. In all of these projects, she shows that peasant farming is not only an economic and subsistence practice, but also an essential way of inhabiting a world in crisis.
Asunción Molinos Gordo won the Sharjah Biennial prize in 2015 for her project WAM (World Agriculture Museum), and represented Spain at the XIII Havana Biennial, Cuba, in 2019. In 2020 she presented her project In Transit: Botany of Journey at Art Jameel's Artist Garden in Dubai.
Her work has been exhibited at the Victoria & Albert Museum (London, UK), Delfina Foundation (London, UK), Arnolfini (Bristol, UK), The Townhouse Gallery (El Cairo, Egypt), Darat Al Funun (Amman, Jordan), Tranzit (Prague, Czech Republic), Art Basel Miami Beach (USA), Cappadox Festival (Uçhisar, Turkey), The Finnish Museum of Photography (Helsinki, Finland), Carrillo Gil Museum (Mexico), MAZ Museo de Arte de Zapopan (Guadalajara, Mexico), He Art Museum (Guangdong, China), IVAM (Valencia, Spain), MUSAC (Leon, Spain), CA2M (Madrid, Spain), CAB (Burgos, Spain), Matadero (Madrid, Spain) and La Casa Encendida (Madrid, Spain), among other venues.
Represented by Travesía Cuatro Gallery (Madrid and Mexico), her work can be found in the collections of the Autonomous Government of Madrid; the Calosa Foundation in Mexico; Darat Al Funun in Amman, Jordan, and Francesca Thyssen's TBA21 in Vienna, Austria, among others.
She holds a BA in Philosophy and Arts from the Complutense University of Madrid, where she also obtained a Master's Degree in Theory and Practice of Contemporary Art. She is currently studying anthropology and ethnography at the UNED. Molinos Gordo lives and works between Spain and Egypt.