Ruina Montium. Raphaëlle Peria (PHotoESPAÑA 2026)

From 5 June to 27 September, the Minerva Hall at the Círculo de Bellas Artes will be presenting the work of the French artist, Raphaëlle Peria. Within the framework of the PHotoESPAÑA 2026 photography festival, this proposal transforms landscape photography into a sculptural work full of historic and poetic memory. The French artist, Raphaëlle Peria, one of the most recent voices with the greatest projection in contemporary photography, is presenting an exhibition in which each image is unique and meticulously intervened, creating an almost sculptural dimension. The project is set in Las Médulas, a landscape marked by human transformation since Roman times. There, the technique known as ruina montium was applied, a hydraulic system that used water pressure to cause the mountain to collapse and the gold to be extracted, shaping the terrain from within. Centuries later, recent wildfires have once more transformed this environment, devouring vegetation and exposing the mineral matter, as if it were an involuntary excavation, that reveals the footprints of the past. In this context, Raphaëlle Peria (Amiens, 1989), currently in residence at Casa de Velázquez, develops her research, originating in photography but removed from documentary recording. On the printed images, the artist scratches, erases and draws, intervening on the surface to bring latent forms to light. Therefore, the image becomes a space for transformation where the landscape seems to continue evolving. The series also incorporates photomontages with gold nuggets, which evoke the mining memory of the site. These presences function as a symbolic gesture: where the mountain was once exploited, the artist introduces a form of poetic restitution. Between the erosion of water, the trace of fire and the artist’s intervention, the landscape appears as a layering of times and materials. In dialogue with the festival’s theme, “Reimagining”, the exhibition proposes understanding the territory as a space open to new readings. Image Credits: Raphaëlle Peria. Resilience, gold leaf, pastel and scratching on the photograph, 2026. © Raphaëlle Peria