We’re excited to welcome you into our new curated collection, born from the work of 23 artists and created to bring fine art prints closer to every home.
We’re excited to welcome you into our new curated collection, born from the work of 23 artists and created to bring fine art prints closer to every home.
“I AM HERE”: Claiming Space Through Art
Dare Collective’s First Group Exhibition | Espacio 88, Barcelona | May 15–17, 2025
This May, Dare Collective launched its first group exhibition, I AM HERE, at Espacio 88 in Barcelona. In this vibrant pop-up, ten emerging artists from across the globe came together to assert their presence through art—honest, raw, intuitive, and deeply human.
CATALOG
In a world that often asks creatives to compete or conform, I AM HERE offered something different: a collective declaration of visibility, belonging, and persistence. The exhibition honored the act of showing up as an artist, of saying “I exist” not through noise, but through emotional truth.
Why “I AM HERE”?
Because sometimes we don’t know if we belong, but we create anyway.
Because we don’t need permission to be present.
Because art is the most honest way to say, “This is who I am.”
Because connecting matters more than competing.
Jon Benet (Spain)
Jon’s sculptural series, Los pájaros lloran cantando, delves into a deep emotional connection with birds, symbols of both joy and sorrow. His works reimagine avian forms not anatomically, but emotionally, using tension-filled shapes that suggest both fragility and strength. One poignant piece, El pájaro Tarín, recalls a childhood moment when a bird escaped its cage. It became a lesson in freedom, loss, and the beauty of letting go. Crafted from wood and resin, Jon’s work feels like memory made tangible, an invitation to look beyond what sings and see what aches.
Ana Sting (Spain)
Ana’s multidisciplinary practice centers on spirituality, identity, and emotional recovery. In her installation My War Against Love Is Over, she constructs barricades of embroidered jute sacks that symbolize both protection and suffocation. AI-generated self-portraits shift between saintly and knightly figures, confronting internal conflict through visual metamorphosis. This is love and heartbreak as myth, with red-drenched canvases and delicate textures revealing a battlefield of vulnerability. It’s a space of transformation where pain doesn’t disappear, but becomes sacred.
Eric Moraes (Brazil/Spain)
With a background in fashion and muralism, Eric channels his ADHD into visual poetry. His photographs document 4,237 kilometers walked through Barcelona, where wall textures, urban decay, and overlooked details became ritual encounters. The blur in his images mirrors the pace and fragmentation of his thought process, translating interior noise into external form. More than cityscapes, his photos are emotional cartographies, inviting viewers to walk beside him in the quiet act of noticing.
Adriana Eskenazi (Spain)
Adriana’s work merges two forms of intimacy: food and the body. Her series includes paintings that celebrate culinary pleasure with vibrant color and texture, as well as photographs overlaid with brushstrokes to explore the vulnerability of nudity. Her pieces reflect quiet moments of joy and sensuality, transforming the ordinary into sacred rituals. It’s a feast of feeling – bold and sensitive, aesthetic and emotional.
José Cuartas (Colombia)
In Ecstasy and the Search for God, José captures the spiritual essence of collective movement. Using analog photography, he documents not just raves and clubs, but the emotional communion they enable. Each image is a ritual act, grainy, abstract, alive. Rather than depict events, he portrays sensations: trance, release, and transformation through sound, body, and light. It’s a sacred lens for modern rituals, where devotion happens on dance floors and in strobe-lit sanctuaries
Santiago Mejía (Colombia)
Santiago’s self-portraits are meditations on time and impermanence. Attempting to become stone, he explores what it means to resist change, to remain. But the illusion always breaks—his painted forms reveal both hardness and brittleness. His work is a poetic contradiction: a fragile man trying to disappear by becoming a monument. Each canvas is a quiet protest against the erosion of identity, a refusal to vanish.
Paz Vallejo (Peru)
Paz moves across photography, moving image, and textile installation with a cinematographic touch. In In the Limbo, ghostly figures drift in translucent fabrics, suspended between sleep and wakefulness. Esplendor captures light shimmering on water, turning surface into symbol. Her use of analog aesthetics and poetic imagery draws viewers into a space where intuition reigns. Her work invites contemplation: a pause between the seen and the sensed.
IMUI Design (Spain)
IMUI, founded by Santiago and Carmen, combines eco-conscious design with emotional storytelling. Their series Tríada de Llum includes three sculptural lamps made from biodegradable PLA: Llum Primera (origin light), Albada (dawn), and Foc Sagrat (sacred fire). Each piece reflects our ancestral relationship with warmth and illumination. These are not just lights, but emotional anchors, sustainable, symbolic, and soulful companions.
María Massaad (Lebanon)
María’s abstract paintings are acts of survival. With bold colors and layered forms, she explores sacrifice as a visual language of care and collective strength. Her brushstrokes burn like threads, weaving together trauma, tenderness, and resistance. Rooted in generational memory, her work doesn’t seek to resolve pain, but to honor it. Every shape speaks of what transforms us—alone and together.
Juan Manuel Cino (Argentina)
Cino’s art fuses Pop Art, cartoon aesthetics, and personal nostalgia to investigate desire, temptation, and self-deception. In TENTACIÓN, repeated devilish figures—varied only by color—challenge viewers to recognize how we glamorize what harms us. His playful style belies a sharp critique of visual seduction and emotional vulnerability. His work is at once bright and biting, fun and philosophical.
I AM HERE offered a raw, resonant experience. These ten artists didn’t just show their work they shared their stories, processes, and emotional vocabularies. As Dare Collective’s first curatorial venture, this exhibition reclaimed space for artists who create not for approval, but from necessity.
From Thursday 15 to Saturday 17 of may, I AM HERE became more than an exhibition, it became a space of presence, connection, and unexpected community. Huge thanks to everyone who came through with intention, to the artists for being fully present, and to our amazing collaborators Espacio 88 and Barless for bringing the energy and good vibes.
I AM HERE offered a raw, resonant experience. These ten artists didn’t just show their work they shared their stories, processes, and emotional vocabularies. As Dare Collective’s first curatorial venture, this exhibition reclaimed space for artists who create not for approval, but out of necessity.
From Thursday, May 15th to Saturday, May 17th, I AM HERE became more than an exhibition it became a space of presence, connection, and unexpected community. People weren’t just looking, they were feeling, reading, asking, connecting. It was real, it was shared, and it was powerful. We were there. Fully.
This experience wouldn’t have been the same without the unique energy of our collaborators. A special thanks to Espacio 88 for holding space so beautifully and to Barless, whose contribution went far beyond serving drinks.
Barless is a duo of exceptional bartenders with a rare sensitivity not just in technique, but in storytelling. Their “liquid creativity” brought an emotional and sensory layer to the event that seamlessly intertwined with the visual and sonic atmosphere. Together, we created a shared experience that touched multiple senses, blurring the lines between art, hospitality, and sound.
At Dare, this collaboration represents the kind of synergy we strive for where art doesn’t just hang on walls, but flows through every element of the space. Through curated soundscapes and crafted drinks, we invited people to slow down, tune in, and feel.
More than a moment, this was a communion of vision, of expression, and of presence.
Thank you for daring with us.
To follow the artists or acquire available works, visit @dare.collective
Or email: daniela@darecollective.pro | sara@darecollective.pro