Artist Pablo Sanz has recorded 600 hours of sounds in Lajares, Ajuy and other areas of Fuerteventura where permits for rare earth exploration have been requested. The project, funded by the Ministry of Culture, explores the acoustic ecology of the island.
The silence of Fuerteventura is no longer such. Artist, composer and researcher Pablo Sanz has traversed during April and June 2026 the 75 mining grids where permits for rare earth exploration have been requested in the municipalities of La Oliva, Puerto del Rosario and Pájara. The result: over 600 hours of recordings of the island's soundscape.
A constellation of sounds in the majorero landscape
The project, named Tierras Raras, has received funding from the Ministry of Culture for Artistic Production and Research. Sanz and his collaborator Palma Edith Christian Martínez have used hydrophones, contact microphones, electromagnetic and ultrasonic devices, and aerial microphones to capture the sonic plurality of the environment.
“A sound never appears alone or in a vacuum —Sanz explains—. It appears alongside other sounds and is formed and transformed in relation to the space, to the bodies that produce it, to the medium and materials that transmit it, to the environmental conditions, the distance, the architecture of the place and also with the listener.”
The recordings feature the wind, rocks, the ocean, plants, birds, insects, infrastructures and silences. The artist does not seek to create an exhaustive inventory, but to conceive sound as “a place-space to inhabit and traverse, as a tool.”
Field anecdotes: a lost earthquake and a nibbling goat
During the fieldwork, the team faced setbacks. On May 22, a 4.5 magnitude earthquake occurred while they were working in the area of the second mining exploration permit, in Ajuy (Pájara). “We missed recording it,” laments Sanz.
On another occasion, they left an autonomous kit set up next to a pond frequented by goats and birds in an isolated ravine. Upon returning the next day, they found the cable chewed in several places by a goat. The recording was interrupted after three hours, losing the rest of the afternoon, the night and the following morning.
Among the most notable findings, the team highlights the calls and voices of the great grey shrike and the underwater activity in several ponds, with small unidentified sounds likely produced by insects, plants or other organisms.
From Fuerteventura to the world: sound as art
After the fieldwork, Sanz now faces the composition of all those sound materials. His aim is to present the project in Fuerteventura with an exhibition and sound installation: “A place where the public can enter and stay, with sound distributed in the space.”
Pablo Sanz's work has been experienced internationally in venues such as the Reina Sofía Museum, La Casa Encendida, the National Auditorium of Music, the Brooklyn Acoustic Ecology Festival (New York) or the FILE Festival (São Paulo), among others. He has produced commissioned works for Radio Clásica (RNE), Radio Museo Reina Sofía and Czech Radio.
For the resident of Fuerteventura, this project offers a unique opportunity to rediscover the everyday sounds of their island, from the dry chirp of the gavias to the wind on the Tindaya mountain. The exhibition, still without a specific date or location, promises to immerse the audience in an acoustic experience that transforms the perception of the majorero landscape.
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