Fuego y Agua is the second iteration of Kay Aplin’s collaborative work with Joseph Young, Fire & Water, created for Collect at the Saatchi Gallery, London in 2019.

Both artists documented the Victoria Spring, the source at Aguas de Borines, a former spa and currently a water bottling plant and brewery in Asturias, northern Spain. Kay collected plants growing around the spring and used a digital microscope to magnify the micro flora as the basis for her tile-based designs, whilst Joseph recorded the sounds of the spring utilising binaural recording techniques to produce an immersive soundscape. Joseph also recorded the sounds of an anagama firing at Kohila Woodfiring Symposium, Estonia, attended by both artists in 2017. The resulting soundscape accompanies Kay’s roundels of Asturian Flora in soda woodfired and oxidized porcelain.

The exhibition opened on the 130th anniversary of the founding of the spa as the culminating event in a day of celebrations at Aguas de Borines. The exhibition opened to great acclaim and was situated in the beautiful, unrenovated spa building. In addition Kay made table decorations of Asturian Flora roundels for the lunch which featured an identical menu to that served 130 years before. Finally, but not least, the brewery produced a special brew called 130 years which was “uncorked” on the opening day.