Turbina Studio Our way of working is not very conventional, we don't have a very clear schedule or routine. We organise ourselves daily as much as possible, and adapt to the rhythms set by our daughter.
Turbina Studio is an artistic practice founded in 2018 by Mateo Fumero and Minerva Capdevila. It is primarily concerned with the perception of time, space and the cosmos: through its exploration of materials and objects, it reflects on life’s transcendental questions, reframing the earthly experience of the unknown. Mateo and Minerva live together with their young daughter, Rita, in an old dry cleaners in Sants, Barcelona, where home and work co-exist in perfectly unstructured fluidity — almost all of the time.
Turbina Studio Our way of working is not very conventional, we don't have a very clear schedule or routine. We organise ourselves daily as much as possible, and adapt to the rhythms set by our daughter.
The home of artists Mateo Fumero and Minerva Capdevila, co-founders of Turbina Studio, is defined by its fluidity. The pair, partners in life and work, are based in a former dry cleaner in Sants, Barcelona.
There, they live in a warm, raw, textural space with a neutral palette, lots of lush green plants, and an ever-evolving collection of objects.
The open-plan living area they share with their three-year-old daughter, Rita, is connected to their workspace — a large, open room full of machinery, objects and material archives — allowing the artists to step seamlessly between home and work, life and art. From hour to hour, day to day, their young family eludes regularity and routine. Instead, their time is ruled by how they feel, what they need in the moment, and how much longer one of their newly created sculptures might need to dry in the studio, before they can resume work on it. It’s an unconventional way of life, and their space has evolved to accommodate it.
Except, that is, in the kitchen-cum-dining area, which is configured around a simple, elegant table and accompanying bench. Overhead, the skylight provides a direct connection to the sun, the moon and the cosmos, which play such an elemental role in the studio’s practice. (Turbina, whose name refers to the idea “of generating things, of transforming energy, or being in continuous motion”, is driven by the duo’s interest in the universe, the planets and their orbits, space and time.) But Mateo, Minerva and Rita spend much of their time in this family space, cooking nourishing meals for lunch and dinner. The living space is, if you like, the axis on which the whole home turns.
Turbina Studio The fact that the process has been so slow — there are still unfinished parts — has given us time to live in the space, reflect and change when necessary.
Elsewhere, they display their treasures — remnants of past projects, industrial processes, organic rocks or pleasing found objects. They play, they reflect, they exist together. They continue to grow the space itself — the outside terrace, currently a space for messy work, is very much a work in progress, and they are also planning a room for Rita, for the future. If Turbina’s work explores the perception of time and space through sculptural works, then it’s from this base that their ideas originate. Fluidly, organically. At their own pace.
Turbina Studio We like to talk about the language of materials; we understand that each material has its own implicit, ancient symbology, somehow inscribed in our collective unconscious.
In collaboration with Friends of Friends
Photography by Guillermo de la Torre
Words by Maisie Skidmore