The Maritime Museum of Mallorca hosts “En Ruta,” the new phase of the artistic project “TAPÍS”

The exhibition presents a new phase of the multisensory artistic research project “TAPÍS” (2020–2026), which represented the Balearic Islands at ARCOmadrid 2025.

The Consell of Mallorca inaugurated last Saturday, June 6, at the Maritime Museum of Mallorca in Ses Voltes, the exhibition “En Ruta” (2026), a new phase of the multisensory artistic research project “TAPÍS” (2020–2026) by artist Mònica Fuster. The project, which in 2025 was selected by the Institut d’Estudis Baleàrics (IEB) to represent the Balearic Islands at ARCOmadrid, now continues its journey with a proposal that focuses on maritime routes and the role they have played in the construction of Mallorca’s maritime heritage.

“En Ruta,” which can be visited until June 24, combines artistic research, agricultural heritage, and traditional navigation. The project follows the historical journey of Capsicum annuum and Mallorca’s paprika, a product with a protected designation of origin that becomes the guiding thread of the exhibition. Through this element, Fuster builds a narrative that connects sea and land, memory and territory, tradition and contemporaneity.

The Vice President of the Consell of Mallorca and Councillor for Culture and Heritage, Antònia Roca, highlighted that “this artistic project helps us to value maritime heritage, to understand how maritime routes have connected the island with the world, and how culture is built from these exchanges.” Roca also noted that “the Maritime Museum is the ideal space to host this poetic perspective on maritime routes and the links that have shaped our identity. Since its renovation and the opening of the new museographic route last October, the museum has become a benchmark space for showcasing Mallorca’s maritime heritage and connecting it with contemporary artistic creation.”

Building on this thread, Fuster develops a dialogue between botany, navigation, cartography, trade, popular memory, and contemporary artistic practices. The research also includes the study of the Mallorcan cartographic school and the symbolic elements present in nautical charts and illuminated maps, which have served as visual and conceptual references for the video work.

The audiovisual pieces included in the exhibition were created through an extensive filming process at different points along Mallorca’s coastline. The work includes recordings of a llaüt decorated with strings of tap de cortí peppers, used to document voyages to Cabrera and approaches to Na Guardis. Filming was also carried out around Sa Dragonera and in various locations along the coast of Portocolom.

In this new stage of the project, the fisherman Pedro Paniza and the Association of Traditional Boats of Portocolom have collaborated from an affective and close-knit perspective, contributing knowledge, experience and support to the development of the artistic proposal. Likewise, the project incorporates mediation activities developed with the Estel de Llevant and Aproscom foundations, as well as with the association Dones en Marxa of Felanitx, reinforcing its community-based and participatory dimension.

The audiovisual piece dialogues with the work Inner Moon (2022), which unfolds as a map and reinforces the ideas of travel, orientation, and cartography present throughout the research.

It should be remembered that “TAPÍS” is an ongoing multisensory artistic research project (in fieri) that in 2025 won the open call from the IEB to participate in ARCOmadrid, curated by Sebastià Mascaró. In that stage of the journey, also conceived as an open and constantly evolving exploration, Fuster worked in collaboration with filmmaker Françoise Polo and with sound compositions by Pedro Tous.

In this way, “En Ruta” not only revisits a history of the circulation of seeds, products, and knowledge, but also activates a contemporary perspective on the links between sea, land, and the communities that inhabit them, turning heritage into a living, shared, and ever-moving experience.