Continents like seeds

“Continents Like Seeds” explores the contradictions of colonial legacies through artistic practices, featuring Spanish artists El Niño de Elche and Pedro G. Romero.

The exhibition Continents like seeds features the work of three prominent artists: La Chola Poblete (Argentina), and the Spanish artists Niño de Elche, and Pedro G. Romero. The exhibition interrogates colonial legacies through sonic art, sculpture, drawing, and performance, fostering dialogue around identity, history, and transformation.

Niño de Elche and Pedro G. Romero engage with transnational histories of flamenco through research, music, and embodied practice. Their collaboration maps antipodean connections formed in and around the imperial trade routes that shaped flamenco, particularly the Manila Galleon (1565–1815). The work unfolds as the songs that trace these circuits of exchange and contamination, exploring the webs that link Spain, Mexico, Thailand, the Philippines, Japan, Indonesia, Aotearoa (New Zealand), and Samoa.

Niño de Elche and G. Romero ground these histories in embroidered flamenco shawls, or mantones de Manila, which were produced in China, sold in the Americas, worn and reinterpreted in Mexico and the Philippines, and later appropriated as symbols of “Spanish culture.” These connections are represented in collaborations with artists such as Arto Lindsay, Paula Comitre, Raül Refree, and Lee Ranaldo.

Curated by Manuela Moscoso and Marian Chudnovsky, Continents like seeds offers a multifaceted exploration of colonialism’s lingering effects, with the Spanish contribution at its conceptual and artistic core.

Performances

• On Thursday, May 15. Lee Ranaldo and Raül Refree. Performance with Niño de Elche. Details forthcoming.
• On Saturday, May 17. Yinka Esi Graves. Performance with Niño de Elche. Details forthcoming.

Niño de Elche

Niño de Elche, born in Francisco Contreras Molina in Elche, Spain, is a multidisciplinary artist renowned for redefining flamenco by blending it with performance art, poetry, improvisation, minimalism, and electronic music. His innovative approach challenges traditional flamenco norms, earning him descriptions such as “a flamenco punk” and “a musical UFO” by various media outlets. He has collaborated with artists like Israel Galván, Angélica Liddell, Rocío Molina, and Raül Refree, and has presented works at venues including the Reina Sofía Museum in Madrid.

His discography features albums like Voces del extremo (2015), Antología del Cante Flamenco Heterodoxo (2018), and Flamenco. Mausoleo de Celebración, Amor y Muerte (2022). Upcoming projects include Cante a lo gitano and a collaborative album with Raül Refree, both slated for release in 2025.

Pedro G. Romero

Pedro G. Romero in Aracena, Huelva, 1964 is a researcher, curator and editor who has also worked as an artist since 1985. Since the late 1990s, his practice has centred on two vital instruments: Archivo F. X. and Máquina P.H., through which he propels the Independent Platform of Modern and Contemporary Flamenco Studies (PIE.FMC) in its primary aim of broadening flamenco’s field of study with tools originating from aesthetics, art history, visual studies and new considerations that surface, ranging from cultural studies to anthropology and sociology.

Moreover, in relation to flamenco imagery and popular culture, Romero has put forward projects on a European level, for instance forma-de-vida (Way-of-Life), on art-making by flamenco figures, gypsies and Romany people for the Bergen Assembly in Norway and Kunstverein in Stuttgart.

CARA

CARA is a non-profit organization, research center and publisher that seeks to expand public discourses and historical records to reflect the abundant past, present and future of art. Through initiatives such as publications, exhibitions, public programs, and scholarship, it challenges dominant narratives and amplifies the diversity of arts and culture.