Miguel Sbastida

If I could talk to a coral reef, I would ask them to tell me how it is to live on the sea bed, in a parallel world but on this same Earth. I wonder about the adaptative superpowers of all the creatures that live there, and their voices too. I wonder if they know we are here roaming the dry soil and changing the Earth system at large. I wonder, if they can hear the sounds of our oil rigs and our motorboats, and if they enjoy the chatter of airplanes passing by the sky. I wonder if they know about deep sea mining and if, as trees in a forest, they also feel the death of neighbor reefs to blast fishing and trawling. I wonder if they can hear the silence emanating off their bleached bodies and I can’t fail to wonder if they might speak to us as well. I can’t imagine how it must feel to be cooked alive, in an ocean of warming, acidifying waters; but if I could, I would ask them to tell us their story, through the embodied knowledge that they are, as one of the most biodiverse ecosystems on Earth.” Voice of Coral (2023) is the latest chapter of my ongoing research Postnatural Ecosystems (2019-21), a project connected to the postnatural ecologies of coral reefs, and the sophisticated technologies being implemented at oceanic restoration sites, in an effort to accelerate the coral’s adaptation to the changing climate. The exhibition looks closely at the technique of acoustic enrichment, through a series of sculptural sound-based works that invite the viewer to experience the language of coral creatures and the fading voice of a soundscape predicted to disappear within the next century. As part of the exhibition the GAR Gallery has donated a portion of the exhibition budget to Reef Renewal USA to help fund coral restoration and research. This show was curated by Regine Basha and commissioned by the GAR- Galveston Artist Residency

This year has been quite rough, and I haven't had the time or the energy to share much of what has been up and going, but I did manage to make a new artwork; and that is a lot in a world that has surpassed 7 out its 9 planetary boundaries. A world that is becoming a shadow of horrors previously lived and of new ones that bring their own new specific challenges. Breath of Carbon (2025) is my first public space artwork, commissioned and produced by the @embeskazajstan under the program ancient futures @ancient__futures , that was curated by @sludskiy last April. Grateful to be able to work on new things and to everyone in the team of ancient futures that has made this possible! The site-specific installation contrasts mineral coal with drawings of ancient carboniferous plants that lived in this ecosystem; inviting viewers to re-imagine the landscape, reflect on plants’ ability to accumulate carbon, and the impact of fossil fuels on our present climate. Formed in tropical rainforest swamplands, coal stores the energy of an ancient sun that shone 300 million years ago. When burnt, it releases the photosynthetic memory of these plants into the atmosphere, connecting the deep-time past with the present, and the possibilities of our futures. Kazakhstan is currently the second world producer of Coal and around 50% of its energy comes from the combustion of this fossil energy source.

Archaeologies of Climate (2019) Variable dimensions (180 x 9 x 9cm) @feriaarco

Here are some pictures of "Beneath the surface" at @mar.motto festival 2026, that I have developed with a lot of love during a series of two research residencies hosted by the incredible marine conservation NGO @sciaena in Faro (Portugal). I had a lot of fun making this installation using beach sand cleaned from roads after the stormy winter, and walking while collecting some objects found in the Ria Formosa. The Ria is a unique marshland ecosystem in Europe with incredible marine value and a hotspot of seagrass, seahorses and shellfish, among many other marine creatures. It is a blue carbon hotspot as well, absorbing around twice as much carbon dioxide as their land counterparts. During my residency I researched a lot about ocean acidification, but I ended up being interested in the soundscapes of the Ria and decided to make this sound installation, that I recorded with hydrophones. I was wondering how did the ecologies of the Ria heard the local noise of the airplanes, the boats and our human antivities as we interacted with the ecological fabric of the place, and wanted to provide a lens of how the soundscape might be from beneath the waters to the local non-human residents. The work is inspired in the morphology and movement of bodies across the Ria Formosa. In the installation, different ecologies of human and nonhuman sounds are produced as water, fish, boats and tides displace materials, sand and debris across the space of the Ria. These soundscapes are reproduced inside the exhibition space, in a labyrinthic structure of canals that the visitor has to transit. What's more, Marmotto festival hosted the unconference of the Big Green this year, with so many amazing workshops, conferences and performances. So many great people, in such a special event💙 I tried uploading footage of the real soundscapes I recorded, but Instagram doesn't seem to allow it yet. I used instead something similar aready on the app. The original audio includes six different soundtracks with sounds of boats, waves, seagrass ecosystems and the airplanes passing over the Ria, all recorded from below the surface. Last day tomorrow, May 1st 2026! Swing by if you're in Portugal!

𝗘𝗹 𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗼 𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗿𝗮𝗺𝗶𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗮 𝗽𝗮𝗿𝗮 𝗶𝗺𝗮𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗮𝗿 𝗲𝗹 𝗳𝘂𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗼 @msbastida nos comparte cómo el arte puede ayudarnos a explorar y comprender los distintos escenarios climáticos que enfrentamos. Una mirada diferente al cambio climático: más allá de los datos, desde la experiencia, la emoción y la reflexión. Actividad desarrollada en el marco de #COBIOCCLIM en @isla_redes , Robledo de Chavela. #ArteYCiencia #CambioClimático

The residency of ...Miguel Sbastida It’s impossible to tell whether artworks that address climate change ever contribute towards CO2 reduction or bio-diversity preservation. That’s why Miguel Sbastida’s approach is so commendable: rather than just make his work and hope for awareness to do the rest, he donates part of the proceeds to a specific cause: to save the coral reefs from bleaching and extinction. The work Sbastida created is inspired by the reefs. It comes alive when you imagine it under water, swaying with the current. One set of objects has a glow-in-the-dark glaze, referring to the symbiotic relation between corals and the algae living inside them. The algae provide the corals with nutrients and give it its bright colours. But under duress the algae produce toxic oxygens that cause their hosts to expel them, losing their colour in the process. However, some corals are fluorescent, emitting light to entice the algae to return. Sbastida worked with coil, link and chain structures to construct complex clay matrixes in single and, sometimes, multiple intersecting layers. He also worked with slabs, cutting and carving out intricate holes and draping them over (papier-mâché, sand and kiln furniture) formers to produce convex or concave shapes. He pressed fern fronds into slabs of clay to leave fossil-like impressions — and made a series of tests, exploring the possibility of deforming his work through the firing process by mixing percentages of calcium carbonate and various frits into his clay. Sbastida’s glaze research included the use of sinter engobes, Egyptian blue, copper saturation, glow-in-the-dark and copper red (reduction) glazes. Funding was made possible by AC/E Acción Cultural España (@acecultura ) Website: @msbastida

I must admit this came out of the unexpected entropy of just trying things out, and I love it. I had so much fun experimenting with ceramics and just making, as I was trying to find a way to talk about corals and their material fragility, their porosity, their bleaching colors, the skeletons they leave behind... I made a lot of material tests to experiment with glazes, and then I was super scared to apply anything to them in fear of ruining them. Luckily, the team at EKWC @ekwc_oisterwijk were super patient and allowed me to find my own rhythm... It all worked out really well and I ended up making an overwhelming amount of work. Thank you EKWC for believing in the work, and @acecultura for funding my residency there. Hands down the best one I've done to date by far. Hope you enjoy those spongy corals as much as I do, M

Hi friends, Seems futile and contradictory for me to share this in such a moment of global turmoil: It is the week of art in Madrid, and I can't possibly make sense of thinking about an art fair, or about art+capitalism in a moment like this. For those of us who are proudly not going to go to the fair (I have exhibited there 4 times in the past), I want to offer a free and democratic alternative, not tied to capital production, yet hopefully aligned with the thinking and making of a better world. On show until the end of the month, you will find at the new building of the @fundacion_carasso @infinitodelicias some constituents of my ongoing project (still to be continued), A post Colonial Inquiry of Invasive Species, that I have been working on and off since 2020. The project deals with ideas connected to the history and movement of ornamental plants, invasive species and botanical colonialism tied to the wardian case, a portable terrarium used widely in the 19th and 20th centuries for the movement and establishment of some of the most important colonial crops all over the world. This overlooked keystone technology of the industrial revolution had widespread and prolonged ecological impacts, that have largely shaped the ecosystems of excess, decay and extinction of gobal plant distribution in the present --incuding a selection of black listed invasive-plants named after colonial figures. A few weeks ago, @martinjimenezjavier #Rosario Gavilán and I, gave a one hour and forty minute long conference on this topic which was so wonderful, showing details of its process across the botanical archives of Harvard University, the Botanical Gardens of Madrid and the MAF herbarium of Universidad Complutense. Do not miss if you are in Madrid, plus the building is one of a kind, fully sustainable, with experimental food goinded on zero waste ethics and hosting a myriad of other activities, including art residencies and events. Worth the time. If you always end up going to the same places during this overwhelming week in Madrid, perhaps it is the right time to visit. You will catch me there Friday afternoon if you decide to swing by. Cheers,

One time not so long ago, I seriously thought about quitting making art (like most of us) and traveling to the other side of the world to restore coral reefs 🪸 For many years now that I haven't just been interested in talking about the problems but hoping to become an active part of the solutions, even tangentially. Yet, the idea of installing an artwork underwater never fully resonated with me... The reefs don't need my sculptures but perhaps people do, and that's where art can really facilitate spaces for critical encounter. There is already infrastructure and expert hands working at the reefs, and they just need economical support to do their work. I also never had enough money to make any difference, and that's when I decided that my works could raise and donate funds for coral restoration for every time they are exhibited. They have been doing it now for the last 5 years or so, by donating a part of the exhibition budget. For me it is a much more exciting way of engaging with the subject, giving life to works that would stay in storage and talking to people from other fields including marine science. Ceramics seemed like the appropriate way to talk about these issues and experiment with ideas of fragility, and the fluid shapes of the bottom of our seas. It is interesting that you may have plans for the clay you're working with, but the clay has it's own plans too. I think this reactiveness and unpredictability of ceramics is parallel to the world we live in. I wonder what will be of these spaces so vulnerable to the fast pace of climate change, and about the fragility we also share with them. This work was made possible with the generous support of @acecultura and @ekwc_oisterwijk 💛

Lately i haven't been so good at sharing what I'm up to, but this one goes out to all of you ocean lovers. Tipping point is the very first work I have made using ceramics during my residency with @acecultura in @ekwc_oisterwijk just a few months ago :) I was inspired by coral reef nursery stations and the speculative evolution of corals in a planerary present of surpassed planerary boundaries. In particular, 2025 saw the surpassing of the 7th out of 9 planerary boundaries, this last one ocean acidification, which directly affects marine ecosystems and coral reef health. As you probably saw, the global climate forcing has also reached temperatures predicted to kill most tropical coral reefs by the end of the century, a terrifying fact that puts conservation and in particular, enhanced assisted adaptation methodologies at the center of the conversation concerning the future of corals. Beyond everything, it was so refreshing to work differently and putting my hands into a medium completely unknown for me, and testing where I can take it... There's definitely more to come 🪸

How can we attune to the many voices of our world, and embody the common sentience of the Earth in such a complex moment of ecological emergency? From the deep sea to the seasonality of a flower, the polluted tides of a jellyfish bloom or the inimaginable length of deep time, a wave of complex relationships is constantly weaved silently in front of our eyes. One that, if attuned, might share the many stories of who we are as living vessels of Earth's history, and the relationships of kinship, intelligence, toxicity and affect that arise from these sentient dynamics. So grateful to take part on this show curated by the amazing @bashaprojects at @601_artspace in NYC, opening today 6th of September and in the company of such an incredible crew of artists: @janine_antoni @jwchavez @_goldieland @bozhkov.daniel @goatcurrystudio @ana_prvacki @zanabriski @meditation_ocean @msbastida Swing by if you're in town!

25km paddling down the river and camping along the way to fill up the spirit. In dialogue with the presence of a real nurturing nature and @taijabirgitta , to always remember where we come from and the unattainable value of life we must protect. Nowadays there is a lot of academic theory around nature, and a so-called postnature, but many forget to get out there and get in communion with other voices. The world is bigger than our reductionist maps and our theoretical models. Most important, it is affective and effective; and we, are just a small fraction of it.