Showing the Unseen: Manuel Castro Reveals the Force of Body, Memory, and Trace

Manuel Castro is delighted to announce Body, Trace and Memory, a pioneering tour into the force of the relationship between body, memory and human experience in five powerful works: Presències absents, absències presents (2020), Llits de carrer (2022), Un llit, un cor (2024), Batecs compartits (2024) and Via Sanguinis (2022). The show reveals that daily objects, modest gestures and poetic installations can tell profound stories. Dealing with personal experience and an obvious interest in social reflection, the artist simultaneously touches upon issues relevant to the contemporary: vulnerability, care, memory and the marks we leave in others and on the world.

The exhibition opens with Presències absents, absències presents, a photo-installation that deals with memory and absence. The project asks the viewer to consider, how do we remember people and moments that are no longer with us. In this work, we can appreciate the influence of artists such as Valeska Soares, who transform everyday objects into poetic symbols, or Duane Michals and his poetic narrative photography. These artists use stillness, light and emptiness as tools of narrative, revealing that which is missing can be as potent as the visible. These are works that remind us of the degree to which memory is not just a matter of maintaining an external record of events but a bodily and emotional fact which survives in gestures and familiar objects.

The exhibition goes on to show Llits de carrer and Un llit, un cor, which are works where the bed is more than a simple object – it’s a powerful symbol of vulnerability, rest and shared privacy. Llits de carrer is an installation that represents a direct conversation with social themes such as homelessness, refuge and the right to rest. The piece makes visible something that is often invisible: precarity, insecurity and the requirement to recognize the dignity of all. In comparison, Un llit, un cor incorporates audience interaction. Viewers are encouraged to be part of the work. Participants can experience the piece contributing with their own heartbeat rather than passively witnessing it. This emotional encounter establishes an intimate and direct relationship with this work which, undoubtedly, takes us to Tracey Emin’s My Bed and a language that points towards collective, communal experiences and how through sensitivity and empathy art can bring people together. These works participate in the present-day art scene that investigates issues such as intimacy, corporality and social matters through interaction and poetic usage of mundane objects.

After such works, Batecs compartits takes the human body as a way of communication. The work uses sensors to record the heartbeats of audiences, and turn them into light and movement in the exhibition room. The fact of converting the vital rhythm of the heart into technology, makes it an interactive and poetic experience at the same time. The heartbeat, simple and universal, serves as a bridge for the visitor to become linked to any of those who participate in this emotional experience.

You can see an influence of artists like Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, who combines technology with audience participation, in the way that Manuel Castro employs technology and interaction. Batecs compartits questions us on the fragility of human beings and interrelationships as we share rhythms, feelings or even instants.

The show ends with Via Sanguinis, a video performance that deals with violence and memory. Blood is presented as trace; it becomes both a metaphor for pain and individual memory and an emblem of shared history. Inspired by artists such as OIivier de Sagazan, whose body and matter are transformed into expressive instruments like in works such as Tranfiguration, and Regina José Galindo, who uses the body to address violence and social inequalities, the project produces a visually and emotionally charged experience. Via Sanguinis is not about any specific war, but rather on the recurring theme of armed conflict throughout the centuries. The marriage of sound, movement and silence creates an immersive experience that invites the viewer to reflect on issues such as ethics, memory, and the repercussions of human activity. It is a piece that reminds audiences that while violence tends to be invisible, it leaves indelible marks, and they are ones we need to see, and to remember, if the future is ever going to change.

About Presències absents, absències presents the artist says: “I want to portray what’s left after people are gone,” the artist says.”

About Via Sanguinis, he writes: “This is a piece about violence and memory. It’s not one specific war — it’s a question of the cycles of violence that are repeated again and again”

The five installations that make up Body, Trace and Memory signal Manuel Castro’s position as a powerful new voice in contemporary art. The purpose is to illustrate how something personal can have resonance with social and the global, to show how art draws out the invisible: emotions, memory and human vulnerability.

Visitors may found out how everyday objects and human body can talk about stories that are both intimate and universal at the same time. The works invoke reflection, empathy and a sense of shared humanity. They are reminders of the fact that art is not simply a vehicle for making beauty, but also for holding memory close, forging connection, care and understanding between humans. In the end Body, Trace and Memory is an act of making the invisible visible, as spectators come to see the past as a presence that has not been forgotten completely in their lives or in their community.