SOLAR PERIPHERIES
In Solar Peripheries, architect and researcher Pablo Castillo Luna investigates how the pursuit of sunlight has shaped the territory of Gran Canaria over recent decades. Tourism, industrial agriculture, and renewable energy production emerge not as separate phenomena but as successive models of development, each organized around the capture and exploitation of the island's most abundant resource.
At the center of the research is a striking observation: the landscapes of Gran Canaria are increasingly constructed through thin surfaces that mediate between land and energy. As Castillo Luna writes, they are "skins of plastic and PV panels, often just 0.2–0.3 mm thick, that nonetheless extend across vast portions of the island in search of the sun." The tanned skin of the tourist, the plastic membrane of the greenhouse, and the photovoltaic panel become interconnected figures within a longer history of solar extraction.
These overlapping layers have reshaped an island whose geography is both finite and contested. Greenhouses harvest solar energy through petrochemical materials, while photovoltaic fields increasingly replace agricultural land in the name of ecological transition. Rather than presenting renewable energy as a seamless solution, the project reveals enduring tensions between self-sufficiency and dependency, sustainability and extraction.
Presented in Athens, the exhibition resonates far beyond the Canary Islands. Similarly to Gran Canaria, Greece occupies a strategically important position at Europe's southern edge, where tourism, agricultural production, and renewable energy infrastructures increasingly compete for land and resources. Across both territories, sunlight has become a valuable asset, shaping economies and transforming landscapes. Gran Canaria emerges not as an isolated case, but as a lens through which to reflect on transformations unfolding across the Mediterranean. If solar energy is essential to a sustainable future, what kinds of landscapes, forms of ownership, and collective futures are being produced in its name?
Solar Peripheries invites visitors to look beyond the image of the sun as a symbol of abundance and progress, and to consider the territorial, ecological, and political realities that take shape beneath its light.
Exhibition Information
Research: Pablo Castillo Luna
Photography: Sara Cuerdo
Acknowledgments:
Special thanks to Miguel Ramón, Ander Bados, Charlotte Malterre-Barthes, and the 17th Spanish Biennial of Architecture and Urbanism.
Organized by: Chaido Kaproulia & Eva Lavranou
Opening: Tuesday, June 16th 2026 | 19:00
Isola Studio, Ippokratous 9, 2nd Floor, Athens
Exhibition Duration: 16 June – 15 September 2026
Supported by: LUUN
The exhibition and all accompanying materials are presented in English.
To ensure a smooth and organized experience:
RESERVE YOUR SPOT HERE
Research: Pablo Castillo Luna
Photography: Sara Cuerdo
Acknowledgments:
Special thanks to Miguel Ramón, Ander Bados, Charlotte Malterre-Barthes, and the 17th Spanish Biennial of Architecture and Urbanism.
Organized by: Chaido Kaproulia & Eva Lavranou
Opening: Tuesday, June 16th 2026 | 19:00
Isola Studio, Ippokratous 9, 2nd Floor, Athens
Exhibition Duration: 16 June – 15 September 2026
Supported by: LUUN
The exhibition and all accompanying materials are presented in English.
To ensure a smooth and organized experience:
RESERVE YOUR SPOT HERE
Bio
Pablo Castillo Luna is an architect from the Canary Islands. He is the co-founder of à la sauvette, a design and research practice dedicated to architecture and cultural production.
Castillo Luna is a Visiting Assistant Professor and the Emergent LeFevre Practitioner Fellow at The Ohio State University. He has previously taught at Cornell University, Rhode Island School of Design, and Wentworth Institute of Technology. He has been a Fellow of the SOM Foundation and the MAK Center for Art and Architecture, the Future Architecture Platform (LINA), and Fundación Arquia.
Pablo´s work explores instability, temporality, and material histories in architecture, and has been exhibited at institutions including the Lisbon Architecture Triennale, Harvard Graduate School of Design, the Center for Architecture in New York, and the Driving the Human Festival in Berlin. His writings have been published in Princeton Pidgin, Yale Paprika!, EPFL L’Atelier, and other journals.
He holds an MArch II with distinction from Harvard University Graduate School of Design, where he received the GSD Architecture Faculty Design Award.
Website: https://pablocastilloluna.com