July 20, 2026 | Art & Culture
the STORIES CLAY CARRIES
words Bike Çetinel Şahin
Clay has long shaped the history of the Mediterranean. At the 2026 Biennale of Contemporary Keramics in Rhodes, Spanish artist Asunción Molinos Gordo turns to the material to explore an equally vital subject: water.
Presented from 6 June to 31 October across the Medieval City of Rhodes, Where the Day Starts brings together artists exploring material memory, landscape and contemporary politics through clay. Organised by Big Blue Dot | Biennale of Contemporary Keramics and curated by Stamatia Dimitrakopoulou, Loukia Thomopoulou and Anissa Touati, this year's edition positions ceramics not only as a historical medium, but also as a lens through which to examine contemporary social and environmental realities.
Molinos Gordo presents works from her ongoing project, ¡Cuánto río allá arriba! (How Many Rivers Above!), tracing ancient Mediterranean water systems through clay, pottery and rural knowledge. Moving between anthropology, activism and visual art, she explores water not as a commodity but as a shared resource shaped by collective care. In this conversation, she reflects on Rhodes, vernacular ceramic technologies and the political imagination embedded in clay.
WHEN CLAY SERVED COMMUNITIES
Your work often explores agriculture, food systems and rural knowledge. How did this project for the Rhodes Biennial emerge?
The two works I am presenting at the Rhodes Biennial are part of a larger project titled ¡Cuánto río allá arriba! (How Many Rivers Above!). The project explores the traditional water systems developed across Mediterranean farming cultures, from ancient irrigation networks to vernacular water vessels.
Looking closely at these ceramic objects, what becomes clear is the care with which rural communities designed them to ensure access to water for everyone. Every element was conceived to transport, store and preserve water as efficiently as possible. In many ways, these centuries-old ceramic technologies embody ideas of water democracy that feel remarkably relevant today.
Rhodes brings together layers of history, geography and cultural memory. How did the island shape your thinking?
What struck me was that places like Rhodes—and many neighbouring Mediterranean cultures—had developed clay technologies that served people rather than profit. Water vessels and storage systems were designed to make this essential resource accessible to communities.
By contrast, many of today's highly sophisticated technologies often seem to move us further away from that principle. These simple clay objects achieved something remarkably ambitious: they helped ensure water for all.
QUESTIONING THE MYTH OF PROGRESS
Your work often challenges conventional ideas of progress. What kinds of overlooked knowledge or histories does this project bring back into focus?
The knowledge systems I am interested in are those embedded in ancient clay technologies and their remarkable ability to secure access to water.
Today, many of our most advanced technologies operate within financial systems rather than serving people's basic needs. This raises important questions about how we define progress and development. For rural communities around the world, the fair distribution of water has always been understood as essential to collective wellbeing and social peace. It isn't an abstract idea—it's common sense, rooted in generations of lived experience.
Your work balances research with a strong visual language. How do you bring those two together?
I honestly don't know! (laughs) I think it happens through the making. I care a lot about the audience—who will encounter the work and how they might connect with it. I always try to make my projects accessible, so that people don't need a background in contemporary art to engage with them. The challenge is to shape the story and the medium together, allowing different audiences to find their own way into the work.
WHAT RIVERS REMEMBER
Your project's title invites different interpretations. What does ¡Cuánto río allá arriba! mean to you?
The title, ¡Cuánto río allá arriba! (How Many Rivers Above!), comes from Octavio Paz's poem El Cántaro Roto (The Broken Pitcher, 1958), in which he questioned the myth of progress used by those in power to disguise reality. My project draws on that same idea. Today, financial markets have created the illusion of limitless water through the speculative trading of one of the planet's most precious resources. In a sense, our rivers now exist "above us"—circulating through digital clouds and financial systems, increasingly detached from the landscapes and communities they once sustained.
Your practice moves between art, anthropology and activism. How do you define your role today?
I see myself as an artist who uses anthropology as a research methodology. My work seeks to bring attention to political realities that deserve greater visibility, but its origins are deeply personal. I grew up in a family of small farmers, and from an early age I witnessed the gradual dismantling of rural life and agricultural communities.
That experience continues to shape my practice.
