El Apartamento presented Hidropónico by Ariamna Contino and Álex Hernández at Frieze London 2025

El Apartamento participated in Frieze London 2025, held in Regent’s Park from October 15 to 19, as part of the Focus section, which features young galleries presenting conceptually driven projects.

For this edition, the gallery showcased Hidropónico, a project by Cuban artists Ariamna Contino (b. 1984, Havana) and Álex Hernández (b. 1982, Havana). The work belongs to their broader research project Cartografía total, in which they build climate stations equipped with sensors to record environmental variables such as humidity, temperature, and carbon footprint. These data sets are used to produce a self-generated statistical archive that documents human impact on the environment.

The collected information was translated into hand-cut paper reliefs, creating sculptural cartographies where the vectors and coordinates form visual diagrams of biological, social, and industrial cycles.

At Frieze London, Contino and Hernández presented a site-specific installation that sustained a hydroponic cultivation of selected fruits and vegetables during the fair. The display also included several openwork paper pieces, among them a map representing air and water quality in the Thames River area of central London.

According to the artists, their working method involves transferring scientific methodologies into the field of art. Their practice explores environmental health, social balance, and human dynamics. Statistics —either obtained from existing sources or produced through field research— serve as the structural basis for their artworks, which they describe as “exercises in total cartography.”

Artists’ background

Ariamna Contino took part in the 2019 Venice Biennale, in Cuba’s national pavilion project Entorno aleccionador, curated by Margarita Sánchez Prieto. Her work has been presented at the Havana Biennial, the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes (Cuba), the Museum für Konkrete Kunst (Germany), and the Museum of the Americas (USA). Her pieces are held in collections such as the Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM), Ella Cisneros Collection, Gilbert Brownstone Foundation, and the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes de La Habana.

Álex Hernández, a 2010 graduate of the Instituto Superior de Arte (ISA), has exhibited in the Havana and Venice Biennials and in solo and group exhibitions in Cuba, Panama, the United States, Taiwan, and Germany. His works are included in institutional and private collections such as the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes (Cuba), the Pérez Art Museum Miami (USA), the Consejo Nacional de Artes Plásticas (Cuba), and the Cleveland Institute of Art (USA).

About El Apartamento

Founded in Havana in 2015 and with an additional space in Madrid since 2023, El Apartamento celebrated its tenth anniversary in 2025. Over the past decade, the gallery has participated in major international art fairs including Art Basel Miami Beach, Frieze, The Armory Show, Untitled, ARCOmadrid, Zona Maco, Art Brussels, Artissima, and Liste, contributing to the visibility of contemporary Cuban art in Europe and the Americas.