Unterirdische Spüren

Pascale Espinosa & Mauricio Candela Rodríguez

Georg Kolbe Museum, Berlin — June 2025

Sound concept, live amplification & ceramic sound system — Juan Orozco

Unterirdische Spüren is a performance-installation by Pascale Espinosa, Mauricio Candela Rodríguez and Juan Orozco, presented at the Georg Kolbe Museum in Berlin in June 2025.

The work responds critically to Georg Kolbe's fountain sculpture Tänzerinnenbrunnen, in which three racialized men support a white ballerina. During the performance, water collected from the original fountain was gradually poured onto a new, unfired clay sculpture created by Pascale Espinosa and Mauricio Candela Rodríguez. As the clay absorbed the water, the sculpture slowly disintegrated and eventually collapsed.

Juan Orozco's contribution focused on developing the sonic dimension of the installation. Piezoelectric microphones attached directly to the sculpture captured the internal sounds of the clay as it absorbed water, shifted and fractured. These signals were amplified in real time through ceramic sound emitters, developed in collaboration with Pascale Espinosa, using surface exciters and repurposed woofers instead of conventional loudspeakers.

Sound became a witness to the process of material transformation, making otherwise imperceptible movements and tensions audible. The installation proposed a collective act of listening, erosion and symbolic dismantling, connecting the fragility of the sculpture with the ideological structures it questioned.