In Refuge, Domènec brings together historical models of mountain shelters from the Centre Excursionista de Catalunya (CEC), originally created to study the structural resistance of mountain constructions, with the sculpture Two Shelters and the Phantom Limb (2020).
In this work, the artist juxtaposes models of Ted Kaczynski’s “Unabomber” cabin and Le Corbusier’s Le Cabanon, an archetype of modern architectural utopias. Between the two, Domènec leaves an empty space for the cabin of Henry David Thoreau, on the shores of Walden Pond. Conceived as a “phantom limb”, this absence evokes the memory of a utopia based on a return to nature and peaceful civil disobedience, in contrast to Kaczynski’s violence, which involved a campaign of letter bomb attacks between 1978 and 1995.
For Panoràmic, the artist expands this reflection with models from the CEC collection and a selection of photographs from the archive depicting mountain shelters and structures that present refuge both as a space of isolation or an idealised way of life, and as a place of concealment or escape. The project thus questions modern utopias and explores refuge as a space of dissent, withdrawal and resistance in the face of urban alienation and contemporary systems of control.
The exhibition forms part of the Panoràmic 2026 festival, which features a series of exhibitions aimed at offering a multifaceted reflection on two hundred years of photography and the enduring desire for images that has spanned modernity right up to the present day. The exhibition forms part of the Panoràmic Arxius [Panoràmic Archives] section of the exhibition programme, which presents projects based on photographic archives, prompting new interpretations of memory, identity and the construction of collective narratives.
It will be open to the public from 22 October to 19 December 2026.
