ESTAMPA 2026

In a world increasingly dominated by algorithms, artificial intelligence, and automated systems, artists are asserting the importance of materiality more than ever, placing it at the heart of artistic practice. Making often takes precedence over discourse, process over completion, and imprecision and chance over perfection. Attention shifts towards materials, physicality, processes, and the tactile experience of artworks, giving a central role to what takes place within matter itself. Recent studies estimate that more than 20% of the images uploaded to social media are now AI-generated. In other words, they have no material existence: they are not physical and never have been, unlike other images which, in one way or another, have had a physical presence at some point in their lives.

This contemporary sensibility runs through the practices of all the artists brought together in this project for ESTAMPA 2026, approached from distinct yet complementary perspectives. Their works operate as tools for thinking through questions related to the body, space, transformation, and the construction of meaning. Their practices share a research- and process-based dimension, alongside a sustained attention to the physical qualities of materials, understood as active, living elements within the artwork itself.

This project brings together artists working across different languages, generations, and methodologies, united by a shared interest in materials and processes of production at a time when much of visual culture is generated, circulated, and consumed immaterially. Here, matter emerges as a field of inquiry, a tool for knowledge, and a way of engaging with the world through direct experience.