Ani Cuenca: The Tension That Structures, the Harmony That Resists
- May 9
- 3 min read
Research and writing: Area Temporal Editorial TeamArchive: Artistic Mapping Open Call 2026
In Ani Cuenca’s practice, material occupies the center of meaning-making. Her background in architecture remains as a structural foundation—rhythm, support, relationships between parts—but displaced into a field where stability ceases to be an objective and becomes a condition under constant negotiation. Her work is organized through systems sustained by internal tension, repetition, interlocking structures, and friction.
The language surrounding her works reinforces this logic. Titles such as Inventory of Frictions or Axis of Permanencepoint toward a recurring question: “How much friction do I need to remain standing?” In Axis of Permanence, that question acquires a concrete spatial dimension as it unfolds in the form of a column connecting floor and ceiling. The work establishes a direct relationship with architecture—not as a backdrop, but as an interlocutor. Verticality, one of the most fundamental gestures of architectural construction, appears here subjected to unstable conditions, where remaining upright requires a constant negotiation with gravity, weight, and wear.
The title itself condenses this tension. “Axis” suggests structure, alignment, support; “permanence” implies duration. Yet what is ultimately at stake is the fragility of that promise. The column does not assert itself through traditional solidity, but through the accumulation of friction-based materials: sandpaper, abrasive wheels, industrial components, and wax. These are materials associated with processes of wear, polishing, and erosion. Their presence within a vertical structure introduces a productive contradiction: that which wears away also participates in the possibility of support.
Wax introduces another layer. It functions as an element of adhesion while remaining vulnerable to heat, time, and touch. It records, absorbs, and yields. Within this intersection of the industrial and the malleable, the column emerges as a system in which stability is not given, but depends upon an active equilibrium between forces and materials. This attention to the conditions of stability extends to the very selection of materials. Cuenca works with elements marked by wear, transformation, and prolonged use, paying particular attention to what remains once an original function has been exhausted. Sandpaper, wax, brass, and antique objects appear not only for their physical qualities, but also for the traces they accumulate and their capacity to reveal different states of tension between permanence and deterioration. In her practice, materials are not neutral supports: they preserve memory, register friction, and raise questions about the precarious forms of support that allow something to continue existing despite wear.
In this way, the work establishes a direct dialogue with architecture from a displaced position. It does not reproduce architecture’s logics of permanence; rather, it puts them to the test. Verticality ceases to function as a guarantee and becomes a question sustained in space. Even the title Untitled operates as a decision that concentrates attention on material experience and the relationships activated within space.
Her choice of materials defines the core of her practice. Sandpaper, pumice stone, wax, metals, textiles, and domestic objects marked by use form a vocabulary in which wear and contact are fundamental. Sandpaper, in particular, runs throughout her work as both surface and structure. Friction appears as a constant condition: it activates relationships, leaves traces, and builds continuity. Wax introduces another temporality; it absorbs, fixes, yields, and records. Metals organize, tension, and contain. Textiles and domestic remnants incorporate memory, use, and proximity.
These elements are not presented in isolation but articulated into systems where repetition and variation generate rhythm. In some more open configurations, matter unfolds through trajectories that traverse space and activate internal tensions. In others, modular accumulation constructs dense fields in which each unit maintains its singularity within a larger order. In both cases, the work is sustained by a demanding equilibrium in which every element participates in the structure.
Color plays a decisive role within this organization. It appears with restraint, without excess, yet with sustained intensity. Gradations, transitions, and contrasts construct a chromatic order that articulates the composition. This order is never rigid; it remains active through subtle variations, differences in texture, and shifts in density. The result is a visual field that is simultaneously harmonious and vibrant, where color organizes without neutralizing matter.
Ani Cuenca’s practice unfolds as an investigation of relationships: between materials, between forces, between time and surface. Her works establish conditions in which wear remains active, memory becomes inscribed within matter, and form is sustained in a state of continuous tension. Rather than representing permanence, they explore the fragile structures that make it possible, revealing how certain materials continue to produce meaning even after the functions for which they were conceived have been left behind.
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