Mercedes Azpilicueta

Fire on the Mountain, Light on the Hill was a solo exhibition by leading visual and performance artist Mercedes Azpilicueta, originally from Buenos Aires and now based in Amsterdam. The exhibition was part of the Edinburgh Art Festival 2025 programme.

Azpilicueta’s work explores themes of care and resistance, often shining a light on lesser-known stories from history. She platforms the role of women who have made a difference in the past, and who continue to inspire in the present.

At the heart of the exhibition was a major installation titled Potatoes, Riots and Other Imaginaries (2021). This large-scale, mixed-media work brings together historic and contemporary moments, drawing on Azpilicueta’s research into the 1917 Potato riots in the Jordaan neighbourhood of Amsterdam. These protests were led by working-class women who took action during the food shortages of the First World War.

The exhibition also connects to Azpilicueta’s involvement in Ni Una Menos (translated as ‘not one less’), a feminist social movement in Argentina campaigning against gender-based violence. She has actively contributed to this grassroots movement since 2015.

Presented in our City Dome Gallery, the installation was presented in an expanded form – featuring the central monumental human-scale Jaquard tapestry. Sculptural elements reference items of clothing, tools, or utensils associated with labour. A sound piece layers whispered gossip and fragments of songs from social demonstrations. Together, these elements form a rich collage of images and textures, referencing food economies, collective action and women-led global rights movements.

Azpilicueta’s recent exhibitions include a solo exhibition at Centro de Creación Contemporánea de Andalucía-C3A, Córdoba (2024), alongside presentations at the Barbican, London (2024) and Gasworks, London (2021).

The exhibition’s title – Fire on the Mountain, Light on the Hill – is inspired by Donald Smith’s words for the Lyceum Youth Theatre’s performance of ‘Light Assembly – 2000’ on Robert Burns Day, 2000 (Source: Calton Hill, Journeys and Evocations, Luath Press, 2013, page 109).