A diaphony for 'It was never just here (it was already somewhere else)'

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This excerpt presents an edited recording of the sound piece composed and performed live by Julia Bejarano López, conceived in dialogue with the exhibition Nunca fue solo aquí (era, ya en otra parte) by Santiago Díaz Escamilla at Casas Riegner. The work was performed in the exhibition space during a public listening session on February 10, 2026.
 
Within this exhibition, materials, gestures, and atmospheres form a field of open relationships. Conceived as a diafonía (the spatialization of sound between two speakers, a term introduced by the Spanish filmmaker and inventor José Val del Omar in 1944), the piece invites listening in motion.
The sound originates from a speaker elevated at one end of the gallery and gradually moves through the rooms, eventually settling in a speaker on the floor at the opposite end. As it travels, it connects and overlaps the spaces.
 
A barely perceptible beginning; waves and surges. Bejarano López frames this passage as the slowing down of a tree’s lifespan. Layers of bird and insect recordings, wood friction, a transformed fragment from her piece “Trayectoria inexorable” (2024), and a composition created from the bellows of the accordion come together and pull apart, brush the edge of the recognizable, and remain suspended, thus weaving both a continuity and a shifting sonic architecture in metamorphosis.
 
At times, tension gathers; then, a sustained stillness precedes the settling of the sound, which slowly fades, leaving a trace in the act of listening. Bejarano López’s proposal asserts itself as a singular voice within the exhibition's territory, intertwining with it and contributing new resonances to the web of connections the project brings forth.
 
 
Live recording and sound editing by Julia Bejarano López.
Text, illustration, and design by Santiago Díaz Escamilla.