BOISBUCHET RESIDENCY PROGRAMME
IÑAKI CANCILLO MORA
SEASON 2022
Iñaki Cancillo is a recent master’s graduate in Architecture from the University of Alicante. Drawn to nature Iñaki has been exploring ways to understand how the ecosystems work and are formed by many different agencies and the relations between them. Iñaki’s practice is defined by the mindset that architecture and design can play a crucial role when looking for these other ways of living, reconnecting, and looking for alternative futures in which humans and other-than-humans can coexist together while reverting the negative effects of Climate Change.
Materiality is also extremely important in Iñaki’s practice. He works in in specific places with specific materials, addressing the diverse controversies or problematics that may exist and define the land where the projects take place. For that reason, Iñaki is deeply influenced by the environment and surrounding nature-cultural context of the projects that he develops.
“At Boisbuchet, there is always something happening everywhere you look at, from the smallest to the biggest scale. It made it the perfect working environment for me to feel immersed …. Working at the atelier gave me the opportunity of start defining the device materially while I was still learning about the place and thinking how to put together what I was discovering.”
The project that Iñaki developed during his residency at Boisbuchet was part of a larger project that he had been carrying out throughout the year. The objective was to design and construct a device based on what he could learn from the place itself and to make visible the human and other-than-human stories that defined the ecosystems there. In only one-week Iñaki had to get closer to the nature inhabiting the area and try to understand the interactions between the diverse agencies living there. He started by walking, talking, reading, and paying attention to the details.
In the end, Iñaki built the Anthropophytoaquatic device. This device brings to the light the existing relations between humans and other-than-humans at Boisbuchet using the surplus materials from the summer workshops. Wood, glass bottles, ropes and tubes are put together to assemble a system through which water boiled with beetroot flows to fertilise the surrounding plants and materialise the interspecies stories defining the land.
The wooden structure is built with wood sticks and branches tied together and the aquatic system is made of holed glass bottles that are hung with ropes and connected to each other with plastic tubes. The beetroot water is poured into the highest bottle and then fills the rest of the bottles until it reaches the end of the circuit, where it can be dropped on the ground to water the plants. The whole device can be easily dismounted and taken to different places to spread the nutrients found in the fertilizing water.
“It was also eagerly stimulating sharing this experience with three other creators with whom I had interesting conversations on all kinds of topics. We helped each other too, not only to assemble our designs physically but also to question our methodologies and open our minds, always thinking together.”