EXPEDITION IN SITU?
AN IMMERSIVE PARTICIPATORY EXPERIENCE ON IDENTITY, HERITAGE & BELONGING
CATEGORY
Immersive Experience
LOCATION
BINEFAR 27, Barcelona
YEAR
2024
ROLE
Creative Director · Curator · Mediator · Experience & Graphic Designer
About the project
Inspired by Michelle Andrea's In Situ? series, Expedition In Situ? invited visitors to explore identity through the lenses of archaeology, migration, cultural heritage, and memory.
Every installation was designed to translate one aspect of Michelle Andrea's artistic practice into a participatory experience, allowing visitors not only to understand her work, but to think, create, and reflect through the same conceptual processes that shaped it.
Blending art, science, storytelling, and play, the experience transformed an exhibition into a participatory expedition where every guest became an active explorer to excavate the universe of Michelle Andrea (and their own).
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN WE BECOME SEPARATED FROM OUR PLACE OF ORIGIN?
Objects can be looted, landscapes can disappear, cultures can migrate... But what happens to identity?
Expedition In Situ? explored these questions through the metaphor of archaeological excavation, inviting participants to uncover not only artworks, but also their own stories of belonging, displacement, and cultural memory.
GUESTS EMBARKED ON AN EXPEDITION WHERE EVERY STOP INVITED A DIFFERENT FORM OF REFLECTION, PLAY & CO-CREATION.
Rather than presenting Michelle Andrea's paintings as finished works to observe, Expedition In Situ? invited visitors to step inside her creative universe and process.
The exhibition unfolded across three themed "excavation sites", each exploring a different dimension of identity, migration, memory, and cultural heritage. Every site combined paintings with a participatory installation, transforming visitors from observers into active explorers.
PARTICIPATION WAS AT THE CENTRE OF THE EXPERIENCE.
Rather than simply viewing artworks, visitors actively explored the site, played with artworks and collected stamps along the way.
Experience Flyer
Expedition Passport™
Every visitor received an Expedition Passport that encouraged them to engage with artworks, installations, and programme activities.
Collecting stamps transformed the exhibition into a playful journey where participation—not observation—became the objective.
Site II – Artifacts Under Research
Excavation Site
What happens when identity is interpreted by others?
Visitors became archaeologists inside a large excavation pit, digging through sand to uncover handmade artefacts hidden beneath the surface. Like archaeologists reconstructing history from fragments, participants experienced the uncertainty of interpreting stories that are never fully ours to tell.
Art Therapy Workshop
Make Your Own Artifact
The exhibition culminated in a clay workshop where participants translated their own experiences of migration, memory, or belonging into personal artefacts.
Rather than simply discussing identity, visitors materialised it—creating symbolic objects inspired by the same conceptual process that informed Michelle Andrea's artistic practice.
Site I – Abstract Maps
Our Map™
How do we map a life?
Inspired by Michelle Andrea's abstract cartographies, visitors contributed to Our Map, a collective artwork tracing their own migratory journeys. Using coloured strings, pins, and handwritten object cards, each participant mapped where they came from and the symbolic object they had "carried" from home, gradually creating a shared portrait of migration and belonging.
Site III – Artifacts With Anima
Mi Mateo Puzzle Painting™
How do emotions become cultural artefacts?
Michelle Andrea's painting Mi Mateo was transformed into a collaborative puzzle installation. Participants assembled fragmented canvases to reconstruct the artwork together, reinforcing the idea that memories, identities, and belonging are built collectively rather than individually.
PARTICIPATION REWARD
Win An Explorer Hat
Participants who completed the full expedition and collected all stamps in their passport became eligible for a prize draw featuring hand-painted explorer hats created by the exhibiting artist.
The reward celebrated curiosity and openness rather than competition.
EXPERIENCE PROGRAM
Participatory Exhibition
Three interactive excavation sites combining paintings with participatory installations.
Archaeology Logic
A public conversation with archaeologist Natalia González and Michelle Andrea exploring identity, archaeology, artefacts, and cultural heritage.
Make Your Own Artifact
A participatory clay workshop where visitors transformed personal memories into symbolic artefacts.
Live Visual Performance
Artist Clara Key created a live audiovisual interpretation of Michelle Andrea's work, bringing the exhibition's themes into motion through projection and digital visuals.
Curated DJ Set
A soundtrack curated to accompany the emotional and visual rhythm of the expedition, concluding the experience through music and atmosphere.
BEHIND THE EXPERIENCE
The experience combined artistic, educational, sensory, and participatory layers into one coherent visitor journey.
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MEANING-CENTERED DESIGN™
