Sensory Spaces is a series of commissioned solo projects presented in the Willem van der Vorm Gallery, located in the freely accessible exhibition space in the museum’s entrance hall. Artists are invited to respond to the architectural qualities of the space, emphasizing notions of transformation and surprise. For the twelfth edition of the Sensory Spaces series, the Mexican artist Abraham Cruzvillegas will present a site-specific installation.

Cruzvillegas – best known for his installation in the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern in 2015 – builds his sculptures from found materials, a principle he calls ‘autoconstrucción’. His work is an expression of human reality: unpredictable, raw and unstable but also powerful and energetic. These qualities also characterise his water trilogy, the first two parts of which were shown in Paris and Tokyo. The trilogy is a reflection on universal environmental problems and local issues. He has created the concluding part of the trilogy specially for Sensory Spaces 12.

Three geodesic dome structures -made with wooden sticks, hemp rope, tarred cardboard, screws and bottle caps- lay over the floor on one side working as speakers for three traditional musicians, performing inside them; lyrics tell the story told by a seven meters plastic water hose about a thirsty woman who cries because her children abandoned her. Her tears flood a district formerly built over a lake, then it becomes a well. The three structures will house for two evenings a musical trio, each a musician, from the upper East area of Mexico, the Huasteca region, where they normally play like this: a violin player, a jarana (a small kind of guitar from the region) and a quinta (a larger bass guitar) player; in this occasion they will play a song with lyrics, suddenly approaching the microtonal scale of Julián Carrillo. The performance will be registrated in a video, which will be shown in the installation.