Doris Salcedo's 'Palimpsesto' at Palacio de Cristal, Madrid

Doris Salcedo's site-specific installation 'Palimpsesto' (2016-17) occupies the entire floor of the Palacio de Cristal in Madrid's Retiro Park. The work, developed over five years by an interdisciplinary team of over thirty people, is a hydraulic engineering project weighing twenty tons with over ten kilometers of piping. The floor is covered with a uniform gray, nanotechnology-treated water-repellent stone, inscribed with names of migrants—mostly of Arab or Maghrebi origin—who have disappeared in the Mediterranean between Libya, Sicily, Lampedusa, and the Strait of Gibraltar. The names appear as water droplets that evaporate, leaving no permanent trace. Salcedo describes the piece as a 'counter-monument' and a 'post-identity' work, an elegy for all immigrants who have died without the right to be remembered. The water symbolizes the Mediterranean as a tomb, the tears of mourning families, and the transient nature of memory. The installation is on view until April 1, 2018, at the Museo Reina Sofía's Palacio de Cristal, with limited access requiring plastic shoe covers to protect the artwork.