Patricia Gomez and María Jesús González have been working together since 2002 on projects that reveal the traces of life in abandoned and conflict-ridden places. Through their characteristic large wall extractions, together with video and photography, they not only activate the memory of the people who inhabit these places but also seek to awaken our ethical consciousness and social engagement. In the course of their practice, they have worked in decommissioned prisons, disused psychiatric hospitals, abandoned houses in rural villages or, as seen in the work À tous les clandestins [To all the undocumented immigrants] (2019), in intern- ment centres. Through an archaeological method of wall extraction (strappo), the duo have been able to recover the messages and drawings under paint on the walls once made by migrants in detention centres in Mauritania and Spain, along one of the most significant migratory routes in recent years. By making public the otherwise forgotten traces of migration, the artists recover what David Pérez calls ‘rebellious knowledge’ and encourage us to re-read and engage with the perilous experiences of migratory journeys, as well as their motivations and hopes. A series of activations conceived in collaboration with Gomez and González during the exhibition invite visitors to link the artists’ work to local migration stories in Berlin through workshops based in radical pedagogies.

Works in the exhibition: All from the series À tous les clandestins (2014–2023): Please don’t paint the wall. Charlie-D. Celda 4-I (I). CIE El Matorral, Fuerteventura (2014), mural detachment on voile canvas, 91 × 192 cm; Celda 5-4. Centro de Retención de Migrantes de Nouadhibou, Mauritania (2015), mural detachment on black canvas, 150 × 340 cm; Please don’t paint the wall. Charlie-D. Celda 4- I (II). CIE El Matorral, Fuerteventura (2014), mural detachment on voile canvas, 91 × 192 cm; ¿Quién nos volverá! / CIE El Matorral, Fuerteventura. Patios y celdas / Please, don’t paint the wall (2014–2023), 1-channel-video, 2’ 14”, 3’ 19”, 11’ 02”; Bonne Chance (2015–2023), 1-channel video,108’ 38”. Courtesy of the artists