Arqueologías del presente
Paloma Fernández-Daza Flórez
Miguel González Fernández
Iván Rando Campos
fff.collective is a young practice exploring the intersection between architecture, design, and communication. Our aim is to bring a variety of visions of the built environment to a wide range of audiences, through multidisciplinary projects, open research frameworks and accessible publications and exhibitions. Founded in Madrid in 2023, the collective is built as a result of our past experiences and shared interests: from architecture to curation and exhibition design; from socially committed communication to sustainable design processes.
Currently, our main line of research explores the potential of fiction to reimagine the relationship between architecture and the environment in the age of climate emergency. Since its inception last year, our work has been featured in Revista Arquitectura (edited by the Official Board of Architects of Madrid), and we have been selected for ‘Se Busca Comisario’ and ‘Creación INJUVE’, two prominent open calls for young curators.
Our independent backgrounds cover public programming and curation (Royal Academy of Arts, Polytechnic University of Madrid), exhibition design (collaboration in exhibitions for Azkuna Zentroa, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, or Prado Museum), research, and architectural work.
ARQUEOLOGÍAS DEL PRESENTE is an open research platform –and subsequent exhibition– on architecture, climate emergency and the power of fiction as a situated and socially committed practice. Confronted with the urgency of the climate crisis, ARQUEOLOGÍAS proposes not to dwell on indeterminate futures upon which to project fears or good intentions, but to embrace our reality radically, optimistically, and imaginatively.
This exhibition brings together a series of fictional works – conceived as plausible stories – that explore the material, aesthetic, and social qualities of an alternative present. The starting point of these fictions is set in 1973, the year when the image of fossil modernity began to crack: after decades of economic growth based on the abundance of oil, the abrupt increase in its value triggered a serious economic crisis. Alongside this, the early stages of the contemporary ecological movement led many to consider – even if only for a brief period – what a future less dependent on this raw material would look like.
What would our world be made of today if fifty years ago we had decided to do away with fossil fuels? What would cities, landscapes, and monuments look like on a planet already distant from the climate emergency? Perhaps wheat, chewing gum, or argon?
These questions serve as the starting point for ARQUEOLOGÍAS DEL PRESENTE, a multidisciplinary research space involving researchers, architects, and video artists. From the painstaking research on innovative materials carried out by Saúl Baeza (MAYBE), to the architectural fictions imagined by KRI studio, Matteo Caro, BeAr+Jorge Isla, Vivian Rotie+Pablo Saiz and self-office, or the stunning videoart by LUSTRE: all these works tell a series of plausible stories about a different present.
Through images, objects, texts, and videos, ARQUEOLOGÍAS DEL PRESENTE seeks to open pathways to dream of new worlds from a radical material perspective: presents that are plausible, yet still latent.