Adrián Balseca: In the Forest Ruins
Filling Gallery 2 at DCA, In the Forest Ruins is a major exhibition of newly commissioned print, sculpture, and moving image works by Ecuadorian artist Adrián Balseca. The exhibition, his first in Scotland, continues and expands his long-term research into the global impacts of colonialism and the capitalist logic of resource extraction in Latin America.
The exhibition features two new sculptural commissions: a giant inflatable Bibendum (Michelin’s mascot), constructed from salvaged inner tubes, and a garden of non-native plants emerging from a planter designed to resemble garage ramps. Together, these works draw a conceptual link between Scotland and the Amazon through the historical reach of the General Company of the Michelin Enterprises P.L.S.
Balseca examines the environmental, political, and social consequences of Western exploitation of land and labour. Drawing on research conducted in local and national archives, as well as botanic gardens and collections, he has produced a new series of works that bring these complex histories to light.
The installation follows the journey of natural rubber from the rainforests of the Amazon Basin to the Michelin factory on the banks of the Tay and beyond. Beginning with the 18th century European exploration of South America driven by the desire to identify resources for exploitation under the guise of scientific and benevolent imperialism, the exhibition traces the history of rubber via the economic boom at the end of the 19th century to its downturn in the 21st.
Working with DCA’s print studio to revisit historic brand narratives, Balseca has produced a series of works that subvert Michelin marketing materials. Using dark humour, he unravels the complex histories of extraction, exploitation and greenwashing, embedded within rubber production.
Balseca also foregrounds the profit-driven global dispersal of plant life that resulted from European powers seeking to establish new centres of rubber production. Rubber tree seeds were transported to equatorial Africa and Southeast Asia, where optimal growing conditions enabled large-scale cultivation, permanently altering entire ecosystems in the pursuit of maximised profit.
This exhibition functions both as a critique of the historical structures of colonial capitalism and as a critical examination of its enduring legacy, highlighting how the dynamics of extraction continue to shape contemporary global realities. This is a history in which power and conflict lead to environmental disaster and the exploitation and oppression of living beings. The transformation of Bibendum, Michelin's well-known mascot, from an emblem of corporate power to the jolly contemporary figure synonymous with travel and food guides, becomes a dark mirror through which shifting attitudes towards history, corporate identity and global capitalism can be seen.
About Adrián Balseca
Born in Quito, Ecuador, 1989. Lives and works in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
His work seeks to activate strategies of representation, narration, and/or interaction to highlight the ecosystemic specificities of particular territories. Through his artistic research, he examines various socio-environmental agendas within extractivist dynamics, exploring their relationship with the formation processes of modern nation-states in Latin America. Each project investigates how the colonial legacy continues to shape models of exploitation of nature and territory, addressing environmental issues within a global context. Recent exhibitions include: Colección MACBA. Preludio. Intención poética (MACBA, Barcelona, 2024); Nyctalopia (Void Art Centre, Derry, 2024); 55th Visions du Réel International Film Festival (Nyon, 2024); Critical Landscapes: Selected Works from the Ella Fontanals-Cisneros Collection (MCA Denver, Denver, 2024); ROUTING RUBBER (New York, 2024); The Genetically Altered Seed Breaks the Rhythm of an Earthly Music – Encounters over Several Plants (TATE Modern, London, 2022); Who Tells a Tale Adds a Tail: Latin America and Contemporary Art (Denver Art Museum, Denver, 2022); 34th São Paulo Biennial—Though it's dark, still I sing (Pavilion Ciccillo Matarazzo, São Paulo, 2021), among others.
