The Council of Mallorca opened the exhibition ‘En Ruta’ (2026) this Saturday at the Maritime Customs House of Mallorca, a new phase of the artist Mònica Fuster‘s multisensory artistic research project ‘Tapís’ (2020–2026).
The project, selected in 2025 by the Balearic Studies Institute (IEB) to represent the Balearic Islands at ARCOmadrid, now continues its journey with an exhibition that focuses on maritime routes and the role they have played in shaping Mallorca’s maritime heritage.
‘En Ruta’, which is on view until June 24, combines artistic research, agricultural heritage, and traditional navigation.
The project traces the historical journey of ‘Capsicum annuum’ and Mallorcan paprika, a product with a protected designation of origin that serves as the central theme of the exhibition. Using this element, Fuster builds a narrative that connects sea and land, memory and territory, tradition and contemporaneity.
The Vice President of the Council of Mallorca and Councillor for Culture and Heritage, Antònia Roca
, highlighted that this artistic project helps showcase maritime heritage, understanding how maritime routes have connected the island with the world and how culture is built upon these exchanges.
“The Maritime Museum is the ideal place to host this poetic perspective on the maritime routes and the ties that have shaped our identity. Since its renovation and the opening of the new exhibition layout last October, the museum has established itself as a reference space for showcasing Mallorca’s maritime heritage and connecting it with contemporary artistic creation,” she added.
Building on this central theme, Fuster has established a dialogue between botany, navigation, cartography, trade, popular memory, and contemporary artistic practices.
The research also includes a study of the Mallorcan cartographic school and the symbolic elements found in nautical charts and illuminated maps, which have served as a visual and conceptual reference for the video work.
The audiovisual pieces that are part of the exhibition were created from an extensive filming process at various points along the coast of Mallorca. The work includes images of a galleon decorated with cork-stopper chains, used to document voyages to Cabrera and arrivals at Na Guardis. Filming also took place near Sa Dragonera and at various points along the coast of Portocolom.
In this new phase of the project, fisherman Pedro Paniza and the Portocolom Traditional Boats Association have collaborated from a personal and community perspective, contributing their knowledge, experience, and support to the development of the artistic proposal.
Additionally, the project incorporates outreach activities developed with the Estel de Llevant and Aproscom foundations, as well as with the Dones en Marxa association of Felanitx, thereby reinforcing its community and participatory dimension.
The audiovisual piece references the work *Inner Moon*(2022), which unfolds like a map and reinforces the themes of travel, orientation, and cartography present throughout the research. It is worth noting that ‘Tapís’ is an ongoing multisensory artistic research project (in fieri) that, in 2025, was the winner of the IEB’s open call to participate in ARCOmadrid, curated by Sebastià Mascaró.
At this stage of the journey, also conceived as an open and constantly evolving exploration, Fuster was supported by filmmaker Françoise Polo and the sound compositions of Pedro Tous.
In this way, ‘En Ruta’ not only revisits a history of the circulation of seeds, products, and knowledge, but also offers a contemporary perspective on the links between the sea, the land, and the communities that inhabit them, transforming heritage into a living, shared, and evolving experience.