gabriela
Acha
Prize Maestro Biennale di Monopoli 2025 awarded to Mobile Exhibition Space.
Argentine artist Gabriela Acha was recognized with the Maestro Biennale di Monopoli 2025 Award (Italy) for her project Espacio Exhibitivo Móvil (Mobile Exhibition Space), a performance-installation that reflects on memory and the representation of women in science and the arts.
In Espacio Exhibitivo Móvil, Gabriela presented works by Argentine artists Silvana Montecchiesi (illustration – Datura Ferox) and Paula Roqué Buguñá (illustration – Untitled).
The award was granted by the Biennale directors, Davide Coccoza and Luca Oscuro, in June 2025.
Espacio Exhibitivo Móvil is both a performative piece and a nomadic installation. The artist walks carrying showcase-backpacks on her back, transformed into a mobile museum that exhibits works by women artists and scientists. During the performance, the audience can approach, observe the display cases, and interact directly with the artist or with performers, generating a dialogic, living, and intimate experience.
The origin of the project is linked to Gabriela Acha’s personal history as a collector of fossils and minerals since childhood. Following research at the National Museum of Natural History of Uruguay, where she discovered the overlooked legacy of Catalina Beaulieu —a woman who collected key specimens for that institution—, the project adopted a critical perspective on the representation of women in science, art, and museums.
“The museum I propose is a walking, living museum that comes into direct contact with people. It is a way of disseminating memories and knowledge that belong to women in science and the arts.”
Residency at Monte da Japónica, Alentejo, Portugal. September 2025.
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Residency carried out during the first weeks of September 2025 at Monte da Japónica, in the Portuguese Alentejo, invited by Paul and Inés, who coordinate this singular space. There, in a rural environment marked by cork oaks, olive trees, and the vast calm of the landscape, artists Gabriela Acha and Zeynep Ozkan developed their artistic process at an intimate and attentive rhythm.
Very close to the residence are several prehistoric sites — dolmens, menhirs, and other megalithic traces. This direct contact with such ancient forms of human presence proved deeply inspiring for their creative process, opening new questions and sensibilities around territory, matter, and time.
The images accompanying this text capture fragments of that experience: small observations, moments of work, and encounters with the landscape that gradually shaped the process carried out during the residency.
Participation in This Art Fair together with artist Farah Rahman. June 5–8. Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
Installation and performance during the exhibition Women’s House. NDSM Amsterdam, the Netherlands. May 2025.
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Installation and performance carried out during the exhibition Women’s House at NDSM Amsterdam. Gabriela Acha presented her Mobile Museum, where she exhibited Farah Rahman’s Mushroom Prints and Silvana Montecchiesi’s Datura Ferox.
Installation presented at the Autumn Salon of Pulchri Studio, The Hague, the Netherlands. September – October 2025.
Both portable cabinets designed by the artist contain pieces from her own production that relate to the concept of Vanitas from the Baroque period.
Performance in the frame of the feminist exhibition To The Moon in Het Salon Amsterdam. July 2025.
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