Benjamín Menéndez (Avilés, 1963) works as a sculptor primarily with ceramics and iron. Raised in Llaranes, a working-class town linked to the National Steel Company (ENSIDESA, now ArcelorMittal), the artist has spent decades exploring the relationships between matter, landscape, and industrial and natural heritage, creating forms that oscillate between the organic and the architectural.

Hornos de la Tierra [Earth Ovens] (2026) originated from a dream linked to the closure of the San Claudio ceramic factory, a historic landmark of Asturian industrial arts. The installation features chimneys, furnaces and structures that evoke various industrial landscapes of Asturias. Built using ceramics, adobe, iron, zinc, wood, water and light, the work might appear, in the artist’s own words, to be "the remains of an abandoned city". Viewed up close, it works as an accumulation of materials, remnants and forms that evoke both the artisan’s workshop and the modern factory. Through these works, Menéndez brings to life the memory of industrial labour and the human experiences associated with it.