Social and political themes – particularly issues of migration and refugees – form the core of Philip Aguirre y Otegui’s humanistic oeuvre.
At the Arsenale, Aguirre presents Gaalgui Shelter (2026), which draws on past projects centred around traditional Senegalese fishing boats called gaalgui, often used for clandestine crossings from Senegal to the Canary Islands. This monumental sculpture is painted in the same sky blue found in the drawings on those traditional canoes: the colour evokes desire and belief in the future, while architectural motifs such as the hiding place, the lookout and the lighthouse come together in a poetic imagining of migration and protection.
In the Central Pavilion, Aguirre presents The Courtyard and the Street, a series of fourteen terracotta bas-reliefs. Here, the artist deliberately turns to the artisanal medium and labour of clay as a tribute to the centuries-old tradition of the clay tablet as a carrier of stories and memory. In this way, he juxtaposes the intimate and protective intramuros of the familial courtyard with the chaos and violence of the world outside – extramuros.
—Liesje Vandenbroeck
