Manuela García Aldana

»Militant Sound Archive – Latin American Street Protests«

A sound piece produced in a participatory way with anonymous donations of audio recordings of moments of protests in the public space of different Latin American cities. Conceived by the Office of Dreams as an audio guide, this museological resource consists of material that deals with the sound dimension of the revolts and protests, assembling to the exhibition journey a transnational landscape of “voice uprisings” that travelled like a wave of social indignation across the Latin American continent since autumn 2019, highlighting the system failures of states whose welfare does not represent the citizenship.

* The audio guide is played once a day in the Kiosk Square.
* Use your headphones to listen to the piece through this QR code

Manuela García Aldana (Bogotá, Colombia, 1990)

Colombian sound artist based in Berlin. In her process-based work (soundscapes, sound sculptures, listening collective practices and radio shows), listening is the principle and arises as a context-driven response to the search for spaces of encounter. She addresses diaspora and identity questions with the will to unlearn and remember other ways of inhabiting our collective life experience. 

She graduated in the Universidad de los Andes (Master of Arts) in Bogotá and currently studies a master’s degree at the Berlin Kunsthochschule Weissensee in spatial strategies (Raumstrategien). 

Latest works and compositions have been featured at Kunsthaus Dahlem / Brücke-Museum (Transition Exhibition), nGbK neue Gesellschaft für bildende Kunst e.V. (museo de la democracia), Errant Sound (The Listening Biennial), Real Jardín Botánico de Madrid (Pilar Millán, Simetría de los encuentros) Savvy Contemporary (Invocations For The Phoenix To Find Its Form In Us On Restitution, Rehabilitation and Reparation). 

She recently joined SAVVY Contemporary as a curatorial assistant focusing on the sonic. 

She has a monthly show at Radio Alhara (Palestine). 

https://amuletomanuela.com

Algunos documentos del Museo comunitario del Agua, río Renaico, 2020

The artist recreates at nGbK’s space a mural painting by the collective and social organisation “Salvemos el río Renaico” from the community of Renaico, in the Araucanía region of Chile. It depicts two animals characteristic of the region: the bandurria and the trout. Moraga paints the waters of the river and portrays people with an affective bond with the river. The Renaico River once provided salmon, trout and carp, was the site of personal and collective memories, and today remains a major tourist attraction. By means of vignettes, the Chilean artist living in Berlin makes a selection of her testimonies, thus proposing a symbolic and synthetic reading of a research process with the community to form an institution that will stand the test of time: the Museo Comunitario del Agua.

The institution in the process of formation – still without a physical space – is constituted through the collection of objects and information about the river and its importance for the community. The museum has also represented the people of Renaico in lawsuits against large corporations and even the state.

A video documentary produced in 2016 with this association and collective of young environmentalists denounces the collusion between the State and large companies for the indiscriminate exploitation of the Renaico River for the benefit of the timber, paper and pulp industries, among others, and to the detriment of the water flow, which has been progressively reduced for nearly ten years. This video production is part of the Museo Comunitario del Agua’s collection, along with old photographs and children’s drawings, among other vehicles of collective and environmental memory.

Marcela Moraga San Fernando, Chile 1975

[Salvemos el río Renaico – Renaico, Chile, 2013.]

Marcela Moraga (Chile) currently lives and works in Berlin. She obtained her Bachelor of Arts from the Universidad de Chile in 1998. In 1999 she received a scholarship from the Universidad de Chile to attend the Magister in Visual Arts at the same institution. Subsequent to that she received the German DAAD scholarship to attend a Post-Graduate program in visual communication at the Hamburg University of Arts (HFBK). In 2013 she completed the Postgraduate M.A. Course “Art in Context” at the Berlin University of the Arts (UDK).

Her work has been shown internationally in galleries, museums and institutions, including: Museo de Arte Contemporáneo MAC Santiago (Chile); Kunsthalle M3 Berlin (Germany); National Center for Contemporary Art Saint Petersburg (Russia); Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo (Brazil); TENT Centre for the Arts Rotterdam (Holland); National Museum of Contemporary Art (Republic of Korea); and the Mercosur Biennial Porto Alegre (Brazil), the Nuevos Medios Biennial Santiago (Chile) and the International Cairo Biennal (Egypt). Her work is represented by Die Ecke Arte Contemporáneo in Santiago, Chile.

http://marcelamoraga.org

Expanded research: Documentary presented during the public program

Guaminí
Part of the ongoing project: Cartografía de un experimento a riel abierto, 2018

Guaminí is a town in the province of Buenos Aires, where since 2015 a group of farmers have been working their fields agroecologically. Together with the Secretariat for the Environment and Eduardo Cerdá, an agronomist specialising in extensive and biodynamic agroecology, they have developed alternatives to the transgenic agricultural model. From this experience, they created RENAMA (Red Nacional de Municipios y Comunidades que fomentan la Agroecología – National Network of Municipalities and Communities that promote Agroecology), currently made up of 28 Argentinean municipalities. They say that they have »health, the countryside and life« in common.

Wall text: Guaminí, by Julia Mensch

The agro-industrial biotechnology boom began in Argentina in 1996, when the first genetically modified crop was approved for commercialisation: Monsanto’s (now Bayer-Monsanto) glyphosate-resistant 40-3-2 Roundup Ready soya. Since then, the GM model has been applied as if the territories were open-air laboratories. More than 350 million litres of pesticides are spilled in each campaign, the agricultural frontier is expanded year after year, and new GM crops are introduced and approved without applying or taking into account the precautionary principle. But as the negative effects on the environment and human health increase, so do resistance and alternatives: Guaminí is one of them. It is a town in the province of Buenos Aires, where since 2015 a group of farmers have chosen to work their fields agroecologically. Together with the Secretary of the Environment and Eduardo Cerdá (an agronomist specialised in extensive and biodynamic agroecology), they have developed a path that demonstrates that there are alternatives to the GM agriculture model. Based on the experience in Guaminí, they created RENAMA (National Network of Municipalities and Communities that promote Agroecology), which is currently made up of 28 municipalities from different regions of Argentina. They say that they have “health, the countryside and life” in common.

Together with Aurelio Kopainig, in March 2018 I presented the project and installation Guaminí en el Museo del Hambre. The Museum is an initiative of the Human Rights and Food Sovereignty lawyer Marcos Filardi. Created in the basement of a large house in the city of Buenos Aires with the support of many, the Museum functions as a centre for the struggle for food sovereignty. It is a place where people collectively read, observe, listen, write, cook, drink, eat and even dance. After each activity or presentation, a “healthy, safe and sovereign” dinner is shared. The food is brought by the diners, who before the dinner begins, placed around the table, tell what is the food they have brought to share and why it is “healthy, safe and sovereign”.
The Hunger Museum defines itself as a meeting and convergence centre for those who fight for food sovereignty in their territories from different spheres. It aims to be “a unit of good living”, where “we can share experiences and tools to collectively move towards the realisation of food sovereignty and the good living of our peoples”.
They maintain that it is in our hands to lock hunger, once and for all, inside a museum, so that it remains there, confined, forever.

Wall text: Museo del hambre, by Julia Mensch

Together with Aurelio Kopainig, in March 2018 I presented the project and installation Guaminí in the Hunger Museum (el Museo del Hambre). The Museum is an initiative of the Human Rights and Food Sovereignty lawyer Marcos Filardi. Created in the basement of a large house in the city of Buenos Aires, the Museum functions as a centre for the struggle for food sovereignty, where people collectively read, observe, listen, write, cook, drink, eat and even dance. After each activity or presentation, a “healthy*, safe** and sovereign***” dinner is shared. 

As Marcos Filardi puts it:

*Healthy is free of harmful substances (GMOs, pesticides, antibiotic residues, chemical additives, excess fats, sugars and salt, non-irradiated).

** Safe is that we know and trust who produces it.

*** Sovereign is that it is produced and distributed with the criteria of food sovereignty (agroecology, localisation, direct approach of producers and consumers, centrality of family, peasant and indigenous agriculture and social and popular economy).

The food is brought by the diners, who, before the meal begins, sit around the table and talk about the food they have brought to share and why it is “healthy, safe and sovereign”. 

The Hunger Museum defines itself as a meeting and convergence centre for those who fight for food sovereignty in their territories from different spheres. It aims to be “a unit of good living”, where “we can share experiences and tools to collectively move towards the realisation of food sovereignty and the good living of our peoples”. They maintain that it is in our hands to lock hunger, once and for all, inside a museum, so that it remains there, confined, forever. 

Julia Mensch – Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1980

Lives and works in Berlin, Germany

She studied at the National Art University in Buenos Aires and at the Hito Steyerl’s class at the UdK, Berlin.

She develops her practice based on long term research, reading fiction and theory, visiting archives and territories, doing interviews. Her work is an intersection of text, drawing, installation, public events, photography, video and lecture performance – from which she opens collective dialogues about political and social contexts and future scenarios. Her practice deals with the history of Socialism and Communism, and with environmental sociopolitical conflicts in Latin America with focus on the condition of the continent as exporter of Nature since the Spanish Conquest.

Mensch was granted by the Berliner Senat/DE, Amt für Kultur Appenzell Ausserrhoden/CH, Schlesinger Stiftung/CH,  Sulzberg Stiftung/CH, DAAD, Robert Bosch Foundation/DE, National Art Found/AR, etc. She took part in several residency programs and international exhibition like Soil is an Inscribed Body, Savvy Contemporary, Berlin (2019), 21st Contemporary Art Biennial Sesc_Videobrasil, São Paulo (2019), Ohne Titel, Kunstmuseum Appenzell (2019), Museum Bienal de la Imagen en Movimiento, Buenos Aires (2018), Naturaleza Salvaje, Bienal Sur, CNB Contemporánea, Buenos Aires (2017), On off shore, Museum für Fotografie, Berlin (2016). And her solo shows include La vida en rojo, Kunstraum Baden, Switzerland (2019), La vida en rojo, EAC, Montevideo (2018), La vida en rojo, CCR, Buenos Aires (2016), 1973, Galerie im Turm, Berlin (2014), Salashi, Pyecka Galery, Kosice/SK (2013).

http://julia-mensch.blogspot.com

“Son del pueblo”, 2020

The photographed pieces shown here are unbaked clay replicas of archaeological pieces, as well as original pieces inspired by findings in the collection of the Museo Comunitario del Valle de Xico, a community on the outskirts of Mexico City. The museum has been in charge of recovering the cultural heritage of the area. Despite this, this grassroots institution is constantly besieged by municipal authorities who threaten to close it down – even by illegal means.

The project we present here, “Son del Pueblo” is one of the actions carried out since 2009 by Maria Thereza Alves to support the Community Museum of the Xico Valley. The action consists of a call to people located in different parts of Mexico and the world to make ceramic works based on the collection of the Community Museum. The images are posted on Instagram, on the Museum’s Facebook site, as well as on Maria Thereza Alves’ site, including the name and city of residence of each author in this process that replicates and expands the material collection as well as the life horizons of the Community Museum.

The photographed pieces are, from left to right: two figures made by Maria Thereza Alves inspired by objects from the collection.  Next, the Mexica god of fire, U eueteotl, an incense-burning figure in the shape of a porcupine, simulating a smoking volcano; the Mexica god of rain, Tlaloc, as well as a pair of human figures found in the community’s self-managed excavations.

Maria Thereza Alves. São Paulo, 1961

Alves has worked and exhibited internationally since the 1980s, creating a body of work investigating the histories and circumstances of particular localities to give witness to silenced histories. Her projects are researched-based and develop out of her interactions with the physical and social environments of the places she lives, or visits for exhibitions and residencies. These projects begin in response to local needs and proceed through a process of dialogue that is often facilitated between material and environmental realities and social circumstances. While aware of Western binaries between nature and culture, art and politics, or art and daily life, she deliberately refuses to acknowledge them in her practice. She chooses instead to work with people in communities as equals through relational practices of collaboration that require constant movement across all of these boundaries.

http://www.mariatherezaalves.org

ARCA [extra], 2018

ARCA [Extra] is a digital directory of downloadable files created from research into a creative social strategy related to the absence of internet connectivity in Cuba: the Paquete Semanal [Weekly Package], which feeds the country a weekly collection of offline content on 1TB digital media, transported in boxes of hard drives. 

This largely entertainment material excludes pornography and politics, and its distribution has roots in Cuba’s clandestine systems of the 1970s. Since the late 2000s, the Paquete Semanal, which costs 2 CUC, has become an industry that reaches almost all Cubans. A full download costs 2 dollars, and is a relative but affordable luxury for most.

The digital copying system is technically illegal, but accepted by the Cuban government, which does not apply the law to it.  This “information traffic” is a decentralised phenomenon, without a hierarchical structure, but of the clients. Anyone can re-appropriate the package and readapt it, put a logo on it and resell it, like a creative commons, shaping a user-generated economy with its own content distribution dynamics. This gives rise to the emergence of phenomena such as Packetubers, teenagers who share videos through the packet and use sms and calls to contact their followers, translating the interactivity of the internet into the Cuban offline condition. 

Weist and Siré’s work operates as a time capsule; a work-device composed of 6 folders with files to consult and copy from a computer installed in the Kiosco, under the sign that announces “memories are filled”, emulating the interactivity of the distribution points of the weekly packet on the island. 

Index of categories in ARCA [extra] 

1. Original content: a complete collection of original content created in Cuba for the paquete, including digital magazines, advertisements, and shows devoted to entertainment, sports, celebrity gossip, and local culture. 
   
2. Matrices: an archive of the promotional logos of Cuban distributors, or matrices, ranging from 1980s VHS rentals to DVD vendors to the el Paquete Semanal studios. 
   
3. !!!A R T Section: a complete archive of the artist projects presented in !!!Sección A R T E, a project by Siré to circulate contemporary art in an eponymous folder as part of the paquete 
   
4. El Paquete Semanal (national archive): a collection of content and screenshots that documents the architecture of folders of every sub-matriz, or regional distributor, in Cuba. 
   
5. Selection of photos: a collection of high-quality images related to the Paquete Semanal, including photos of the PCs used by matrices and of boxes that are built by hand to transport hard drives from one city to another.
   
6. ARCA [Extra] Museo de la Democracia: a folder of content compiled exclusively for this exhibition, including research articles related to the works in the museum’s temporary collection, free of copyright.
   

Infomercial, 2017

ETRES is Cuba’s first ad agency since the Cuban Revolution in 1959, and the platform for their work is El Paquete Semanal. Weist and Siré contracted them to create a motion-graphics “infomercial” illustrating the historical, social, and economic conditions that led to El Paquete. The system’s roots extend to the 1970s, when after more than 10 years of full governmental control of media, an underground novel rental industry was developed, assuming a national exchange network. This network evolved to circulate new media: VHS tapes beginning around the late 1990s, and DVDs toward the mid 2000’s. Finally, El Paquete Semanal took advantage of the increasing presence of satellite TV antennas to access pirated media, the availability of personal electronic devices, and the emergence of a small number of institutional internet connections. While the digital copy-system is technically illegal, it is tacitly permitted through non-enforcement by the government.

A full download of El Paquete Semanal (the Weekly Package) normally costs 2 CUC (approximately 2 dollars), making it a relative luxury, though affordable for most Cubans.

Julia Weist. New York, 1984 & Nestor Siré.  Nuevitas, Cuba, 1988

American artist Julia Weist and Cuban artist Nestor Siré have been collaborating since 2016. Their work has been recently exhibited at the Queens Museum (New York), the Gwangju Biennale (Gwangju, South Korea), the Hong-Gah Museum (Taipei), Galería MPA (Madrid) among other institutions. They have written about their collaboration for publications such as Frieze, Rhizome and Triple Canopy and have lectured widely at venues such as The New Museum, Williams College Museum of Art, The MIT Open Documentary Lab and Art Basel Miami. They have been awarded a Jerome Foundation Fellowship, a Camargo Foundation Fellowship and a Media Arts Assistance Fund Grant from New York State.

Web Julia Weist: http://work.deaccession.org/ 
Web Nestor Siré: http://www.nestorsire.com

The white Prince, 2019

Manual for Passing the Integration Test for Spanish Society, 2015

Daniela Ortiz is an artist and activist. She generates visual narratives where the concepts of nationality, racialization, social class and gender, are critically conceived in order to analyse colonial, capitalist and patriarchal power. Her projects address the European migration control system, its link to colonialism and the legal mechanisms of European institutions that exercise violence against migrant and racialised populations. El príncipe blanco y la resistencia del pueblo cercano tells the story of a white prince who tries to dominate the populate of Abya Yala (America in the Kuna language) through the exploitation of gold and whose power is overthrown by the resistance of a peoples of the land; while her Manual for passing the Integration Test aims to provide information to become part of Spanish citizenship from a critical point of view of the colonial construction of national identity and the conditions imposed on migrants.

Daniela Ortiz / Cuzco, 1985

Daniela Ortiz de Zevallos Pastor is an artist of Peruvian origin, graduated at the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Barcelona and studied painting with Claudia Cuzzi. She has lived in Barcelona since 2007 and returned to Peru in 2020 due to threats and xenophobic attacks received on the internet. She has exhibited her projects in festivals and exhibitions, both solo and group, held in Spain, Peru and Los Angeles. She has participated in seminars, workshops and master classes with Paul Preciado, Rogelio López Cuenca, Santiago Sierra, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Martí Peran, Josep Maria Martí, Raimond Chaves, Alberto López Bargados, Yoshua Okon, Natalia Iguiñiz and Marcelo Expósito. She has also collaborated in projects with other artists, such as Cecilia Podestá or Guillermo Castrillón, both collaborations in 2005.

http://daniela-ortiz.com/

Racial democracy, melting pot, purity of races

This series recreates illustrations of maps and nautical charts with their emblematic scenes of navigations and the “discovery of the new world”. It is a black-on-white re-reading of early efforts to depict the system of colonisation, the exploitation of timber and indigenous labour, the first proletariat of the future “continent”. The sticky tapes, often used to bind people in lynchings, form a golden rectangle that refers to the exploitation of land and bodies by colonial commodification. The terms racial democracy, melting pot and racial purity, taken from books that narrate the History of America, reinforce the violence of these illustrations of the “Invention of the American continent”.

Jaime Lauriano / São Paulo, 1985. Lives and works between Porto/Portugal and São Paulo/Brazil.

Graduated at Centro Universitário Belas Artes de São Paulo, 2010. 

The artists examine the structures of power contained in the production of History. In audiovisual pieces, objects and critical texts, he highlights how violent relationships between institutions of governance and state control – such as police, prisons, embassies, borders – and subjects shape societies. Thus, his work brings to the surface historical traumas relegated to the past, proposing a collective revision and re-elaboration of history. 

Recent solo shows: Marcas, Fundação Joaquim Nabuco, Recife, Brazil, 2018; Ao Norte do Rio, Sesc Santana, São Paulo, Brazil, 2018; Brinquedo de purar moletom, MAC Niterói, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 2018; Assentamento, Galeria Leme, São Paulo, Brazil, 2019; Nessa terra, em se plantando, tudo dá, Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 2015; Autorretrato em Branco sobre Preto, Galeria Leme, São Paulo, Brazil, 2015; Group shows selected: Shuttle, Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, São Paulo, Brazil, 2019; The Fall of the Sky, CAIXA Cultural Brasília, Brasília, Brazil, 2019; Quem não luta tá morto – arte democracia utopia, Museu de Arte do Rio, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 2018; Afro-Atlantic Stories, MASP and Instituto Tomie Ohtake, São Paulo, Brazil, 2018; The World’s Game: Fútbol and Contemporary Art, Pérez Art Museum Miami, Miami, USA, 2018; 11th Mercosur Biennial of Visual Arts, Triângulo do Atlântico, Porto Alegre, Brazil, 2018; Contemporary Art Festival Sesc_Videobrasil, São Paulo, Brazil, 2017; Metrópole: Paulistana Experience, Estação Pinacoteca, São Paulo, Brazil, 2017; WELT KOMPAKT?, frei_raum Q21, Vienna, Austria, 2017; How to Remain Silent, A4 Arts Foundation, Cape Town, South Africa, 2017. 

Public collections: MAC Niterói, Niterói, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; MAR – Museu de Arte do Rio, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; MASP – Museu de Arte de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil; Casa das Onze Janelas Museum, Belem, Pará, Brazil; Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil and Schoepflin Stiftung: The Collection, Lörrach, Germany. 

http://jaimelauriano.com/

Capitalist Penetration in the Amazon from 1988 to 2019

In this piece, part of PSJM’s “Social Geometry” series and their “Natural History” sub-series, the artists from the Canary Islands use a mural based on statistical data to show how deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest has evolved between 1988 and 2019. The piece uses two colours – a common graphic code for statistics – and the symbolic coding that associates green with life, nature and the female sex, as well as white as an absence. On the other hand, PSJM proposes a reading based on the title as an essential discourse for the work to be constituted as such. This enables a diachronic reading of the work, making it possible to understand that, beyond political or even sexual differences, there is an evolution over time of a collusion between state and private actors to exploit the Amazonian territory.

PSJM (Cynthia Viera, Las Palmas G.C., 1973; Pablo San José, Mieres, 1969)

PSJM is a team of creation, theory and management formed by Cynthia Viera (Las Palmas G.C., 1973) and Pablo San José (Mieres, 1969). PSJM present themselves as an «art brand», thus appropriating the procedures and strategies of advanced capitalism to subvert their symbolic structures.

The team-brand has been included among the 100 most representative artists of International Political Art in Art & Agenda: Political Art and Activism, (Berlin: Gestalten, 2011). They have also been included in Younger than Jesus. Artist Directory. The essential handbook to the future of art (New York: Phaidon-New Museum, 2009) and Come Together: The Rise of Cooperative Art and Design (New York: Princeton Architectural Press N.Y., 2014), among others.Their work has been shown in numerous international exhibitions such as Personal Structures in the context of 58th Venice Biennale (2015), Beyond the Tropics, in the context of 56th Venice Biennale (2015), Hic et Nunc, Hirshhorn Museum, Washington D.C. (2014), One Shot!, Museu Brasileiro da Escultura, São Paulo (2014), Off Street, A Foundation, London (2009), The Real Royal Trip… by the Arts, PS1-MoMA, New York (2003, in collaboration with El Perro y Aitor Méndez), and others in Spain: Prophetia, Fundación Miró, Barcelona (2015) or PIGS, Artium, Vitoria (2016).

In the theoretical area, it is important to point out some of their latest publications: Arte y procesos democráticos (TEA, Tenerife, 2017) Fuego amigo (CENDEAC, Murcia, 2015), and the article «Marcuse y el lema de la CIA» in Revista de Occidente (Madrid, 2016). Among their works of cultural management are curatorial, coordination and design of:  It´s Personal (Gabinete Literario, Las Palmas GC, 2019), Biotopias (Gabinete Literario, Las Palmas GC, 2018),  Arte y Participación Ciudadana (Las Palmas GC, 2016) and the coordination and design of World is Work, curated by José María Durán (Kwadrat, Berlin, 2010). Their intense activity extends to didactics, where it is relevant their presence as guest professors at Washington State University or in the summer workshops PSJM•Workshop at the Cervantes Institute in Berlin (2012-2015) and Gabinete Literario of Las Palmas GC (2018-2019).

https://psjm.es/

Sin título, 2003

“Untitled” was carried out by Mexican artist Gustavo Artigas in collaboration with the fire department of the Panamanian capital. The work consisted of filling the Municipal Palace with smoke; the palace houses a little-known Museum of History whose collection includes the country’s Act of Independence. The reactions of passers-by range from total indifference to sobs and screams. In this way, they respond on the basis of their cultural memory to an event that has recurred at multiple times and places in Latin America as well as in the history of Panama City, founded in 1519 and for centuries one of the main ports for Europe and the Americas.

Gustavo Artigas. Ciudad de Mexico, Mexico, 1970

Over the last 25 years, Artigas has experimented with different media and visual art modalities such as Sound Art, Site Specific Installations, Performance Art, Relational works, educational platforms, light pieces and painting. Some of the most recognizable Some of the most recognizable works by Artigas relate ludic structures to disaster situations. His work dialogues with a with a wide variety of issues, from the political to the social identities and became part of the booming group of contemporary Mexican artists that emerged in the 90´s and made an important impact in the international art scene. As part of his practice he conducts specialized creativity workshops in countries like Canada, Argentina, Panama, France, Spain, Finland and Mexico. From 2010 to 2018 he was Professor for Contemporary Art at Escuela Nacional de Pintura Escultura y Grabado La Esmeralda en la Ciudad de México. Since 2018 he co-directs with art mediator and pedagogical curator Muna Cann, the Contemporary Art initiative Art Links Inc. based in Canada. Some collaborations include MOCA Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto, TheSite Magazine and YYZ Artist Outlet.

Combat, 2018

Wearing a white jumpsuit, the artist spent eight days at the Southern Command Military Museum (MCCC), Porto Alegre, Brazil, using her body to confront tanks, combat cars and cannons from the collection of the armed forces, establishing disruptive connections to these symbols of masculinity. Inspired by the intersectional feminist concept of sorority, a counterpoint experiment was proposed with the collaboration of eight women who brought daily survival kits for the artist. Each day a poetical-political collection was formed, with basic provisions such as warm clothing and food. The number eight is related to global feminist movements such as 8M, Women’s March, me too, Niunamenos, 8A, #ELENÃO [BUT NOT HIM], among other movements of political struggle for socially subalternised minorities.

Andressa Cantergiani. Caxias do Sul, Brazil, 1980

Visual artist and performer, mother and activist. Lives between Berlin, DE and Porto Alegre, BR. PhD student in Visual Arts at PPGAV-UFRGS and research fellowship at University of Applied Sciences and Arts – Hoschulle Hannover – Germany. MA in Communication and Semiotics at PUC/SP. Graduate in Performing Arts at DAD/UFRGS. Artist represented by Mamute Gallery, Porto Alegre-Brazil. Director of the BRONZE Residence and the Peninsula Gallery in Porto Alegre. She has carried out residencies, projects and exhibitions in various spaces around the world such as Fundação Iberê Camargo, Brazil, Museum of Contemporary Art, MAC, Porto Alegre; Museum of Contemporary Art Bispo do Rosário, Rio de Janeiro, BR; Terra Una Residency, Minas Gerais, BR; Insurgencias, Berlin/DE, Despina/RJ. Her works are in private and public collections such as the Museum of Art of Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre.

Eye for an Eye, 2020

Iron, cement, paper, LED light

Variable Dimensions

This artwork is a meditation on social justice. In the recent wave of protests in Chile, in 2019, more than 400 people lost one or both eyes, which was caused by rubber bullets deliberately shot by the police. One of these blinded protesters said in an interview: “What we’ve lost and what we’ve given wasn’t for nothing.” Rocha Pitta’s sculpture is a gigantic, collective eye that aims to stand in the place of this lost eye. An eye for an eye. To what extent are our notions of justice dependent on visibility? Why should justice be blinded to remain just?

Matheus Rocha Pitta. Tiradentes, Brazil, 1980

Lives and works in Berlin and Rio de Janeiro. Studied history and philosophy at the Universidade Federal Fluminense, Niterói, and the University of the State of Rio de Janeiro in Rio de Janeiro. His work has been presented internationally in solo and group exhibitions, including at  Kunstverein Hamburg, Germany, 2020; Museu de Arte Moderna in Rio de Janeiro, 2018, Triennial Frestas, São Paulo, Brasil, 2017; El Ranchito, Matadero Madrid, España 2014; The Great Acceleration, 9 Bienal de Taipei, Taipei, Taiwan 2014; Artesur, Collective Fictions, Nouvelles Vagues, Palais de Tokyo, París, Francia, 2013 y Kunst Im Tunnel, Düsseldorf, Alemania, 2013. He was grantee at Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin (2016-17). He is represented in the collections of the Castelo de Rivoli, Turin, and the Museu de Arte Moderna in Bahia, Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, among others.

Elevation, 2019

“Elevation” (2019) is a collaborative project with a group of artists at Bogotá’s Museum of Modern Art (MAMBO) to work around the myth of origin of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). The participants in this process are based on the narrative strategies of a comic book of the movement named “Marquetalia, Raíces de la Resistencia” (Marquetalia, Roots of Resistance). The comic book narrates in a simple way and through key characters how a group of militant communists and liberals are expelled from public life during the historical process understood as “The Violence” (1948 – 1958). Their exodus is caused by the homicide of Jorge Eliecer Gaitán, socialist candidate to the presidency, as well as the resulting social uprisings of the “Bogotazo” in 1948. In 1954, during the dictatorship of General Gustavo Rojas Pinilla (1953-1957), the Colombian Constitution prohibited the military or collaboration with international communism. Mobilized communists and liberals went into self-exile in the town of Marquetalia, in the Department of Tolima, a mountainous area of central Colombia. These would be among the first historical antecedents of the movement later known as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – People’s Army (FARC-EP), relevant actors in the armed conflict that lasted until 2016. Currently, there is a peace agreement and the once FARC-EP is a legal political party: “COMUNES”.

“Elevation” is a role-playing game and an experience in 3D animation, a contact zone to renegotiate and reformulate the affective, social and cultural memories of a society after the trauma. The artist creates a world of own rules, the participants of the process construct avatars with supernatural powers and re-stage events, formulating outcomes and other possible present and future scenarios. The artwork also promotes exchange between key influencers and subcultures of the Net at a technological, cultural and communicational level to generate an experience of reconciliation and social re-imagination.

Ana Maria Millán. Cali, Colombia, 1975.

Lives and works in Berlin

Complete bio at

http://anamariamillan.info/

Edicto Cambio De Nombre, 2018

 In 2018, Marilyn Elany Boror requested to change her name to Marilyn Elany Castillo Novella, replacing her indigenous surname with the name of two of Guatemala’s wealthiest families. This act resulted from her research on the social practice of name change in her country: people with indigenous surnames often change them when they move to big cities, especially the capital, to escape discrimination and racism. Boror’s name change went viral and was the subject of controversy on social networks. The granite slab, engraved with his name change and placed on the floor, is like a tombstone or commemorative plaque that keeps the memory of his indigenous surname alive in a space of mourning. [Adapted from “This might be a place for hummingbirds”: Galerie im Körnerpark, Berlin, 16.11.19-05.02.20.] 

* On 15 May, the collective VOCES de Guatemala en Berlín will carry this piece in procession between the nGbK and a collective cemetery and vegetable garden, cultivated by VOCES de Guatemala en Berlin in Neukölln, Berlin.

Marilyn Boror Bor / San Juan Sacatepéquez, Guatemala, 1984

Lives and works in Guatemala. Maya-Kaqchikel artist from San Juan Sacatepequez Guatemala, works in multiple media including photography, painting, printmaking, installation and performance. Her work has been presented in spaces such as Galerie im körnerpark Berlin Germany; Whitebox Munich, Germany; Sur Gallery, Toronto Canada; Galeria Muy, Mexico, Museo Nacional de Arte Moderno Carlos Mérida de Guatemala; Museo Ixchel, Guatemala; Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbara, California; Instituto de las Artes de la Imagen y el Espacio Venezuela; Centro Cultural de España de Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica, Centro Cultural Municipal AAI, Guatemala; Museo de Arte Contemporáneo, El Salvador; Museo de Arqueología y Etnología de Guatemala; The 9. 99 Gallery Guatemala; Nuevo Museo de Arte Contemporáneo NUMU, Guatemala among others.

Winner of the Yaxs Artistic Research Grant 2017-2018; artist selected to participate in the XIX, XX and XXII Biennial of Art Paiz -Trans/visible-, -Ordinario-Extraordinario- and -Perdidos.En Medio.Juntos-, Guatemala 2014 and 2016 and 2021; the Biennial of the South “Pueblos en Resistencia” Caracas, Venezuela and the International Festival of the Arts FIA, Costa Rica.

https://marilynboror.com/

Kiosk

The kiosk, an installation object made with recycled material, is a central point in the museo de la democracia; A mutant dispositive where there are works that address the parameters of meaning framing the founding narratives and the constitution of cultural, political and social life in the Latin American republics.
The kiosk offers objects for immediate consumption: postcards, videos, books and publications that change and overlap throughout the exhibition’s duration.  Kiosks are central nodes in the urban grid, and act as a point of reference in the experience of life in the city. Here, the kiosk becomes a point of dislocation in the social and territorial order, a place for reinterpreting and activating public and private life.

Valeria Fahrenkrog / Asunción, Paraguay, 1980

Valeria Fahrenkrog (Asunción, PA, 1980), visual artist and publicist. Studied fine arts at the Univ. Católica de Chile, media art at the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne, Master’s degree Art in Context at the UdK Berlin. Various exhibitions and projects since 2004. In 2016, together with Joerg Franzbecker, Erik Göngrich, Heimo Lattner, Katja Reichart, Ines Schaber and Florian Wüst, she founded the Berlin booklets on the history and present of the city. Project participations in the nGbK: “Ene Mene Muh und welche Stadt du?” (2016), “40 Jahre Kunst im Kontext” and “Spielclub Oranienstraße 25” (2019). She lives and works in Berlin.

http://dreipalmen.com/ 

Mitkunstzentrale / Berlin, Germany

The MITKUNSTZENTRALE is a place of encounter, exchange, collectively developed knowledge production, concept sharpening and collaboration on climate-sensitive artistic objects and ways of working. Exemplary uses are to be developed in a collectively developed space, which, together with a wood workshop, textile showroom, open-air baking oven, discourse and exhibition spaces of various initiatives, are now located in the Haus der Statistik and are to remain on site for the future!

A project by Erik Göngrich and Valeria Fahrenkrog

https://hausderstatistik.org/pioniere/mitkunstzentrale-2/

Decolomania

“Arts of the Working Class” is a Berlin journal, distributed on the streets, through the art circuit as well as internationally. The journal looks to re-position the concept of “working class” inside society through self-reflective actions about the art world precarious conditions. Arts of the Working Class is focussed on discourses about contemporary social dynamics in different languages and from different regions of the world.

Arts of the Working Class / Berlin (Germany)

Edited by artist Paul Sochacki, critic María Inés Plaza Lazo,  and curator Alina Ana Kolar.
Founded 2018 in Berlin.

http://artsoftheworkingclass.org/

Exhumed

The costume was based on the oil painting that Jean Baptiste Guerin painted of Bolivar in 1842, twelve years after Bolivar’s death, at the order of the Venezuelan government to celebrate the burial of Bolivar’s remains in Caracas. The heart-shaped red part of Bolivar’s uniform is perhaps one of the most used symbols to represent him, and thus serves as one of the main features in his iconography today as well. Equally important features are the hair and sideburns that make Bolivar’s figure ubiquitous and instantly recognizable.

Simon Bolivar-Museum

The aim of the collection is to analyse the significance of the historical figure Simon Bolivar for South America in the past and present. The Simon Bolivar Museum would like to make this development visible, starting with the historical figure, through the glorification from the 19th century, the subsequent mystification, to the banalisation and thus detachment of the person Bolivar from the historical context.
The artist presented this installation as part of his research thesis for the MA Kunst im Kontext at the University of the Arts Berlin (UDK).

Zoltan Kunckel – Caracas, Venezuela, 1975

Zoltan Kunckel is a visual artist from Venezuela. Studied photography and sculpture at the Moholy-Nagy University, Budapest, and Art in Context at the UdK Berlin. His works consist of sculptures, video, installation, photography and performance; they reflect on national and cultural identity, dealing with migration and the emergence of violent structures of power. He currently lives and works in Berlin.

http://zoltankunckel.com/ 

The real story of The Superheroes

After 9/11 the notion of “hero” loomed large in the public consciousness as those who sacrifice a life and do a job for others. The Mexican immigrant worker in New York is an unnoticed hero, working in extreme conditions for low wages that are saved and sent back to their families and communities in Mexico. Mexican economy has become dependent on that remittance, while the U.S. economy today depends on those workers. Pinzón photographed 20 Mexican and Latino immigrants in U.S. and Mexican superhero costumes. The project portrays the worker/superhero in their work environment, accompanied by their name, hometown and the amount of money sent each week.

Dulce Pinzón. Mexico City, 1974

Dulce Pinzón was born in Mexico City in 1974. She studied Mass Media Communications at the Universidad de Las Americas in Puebla Mexico and Photography at Indiana University in Pennsylvania. In 1995 she moved to New York where she studied at The International Center of Photography.
Her work has been published and collected internationally. In 2001 her photos were used for the cover of a publication of Howard Zinn’s book “A People’s History of the United States”. In 2002 Dulce won the prestigious Jovenes Creadores/FONCA grant in Mexico for her work. In 2006 she won an Honorific Mention in the Santa Fe project competition and she won the 12th edition of the Mexican Biennial of El Centro de La Imagen. Dulce was a 2006 fellow in Photography from the New York Foundation for the Arts and a 2007 for the Bronx Museum program Artist in the Market Place and a Ford Foundation grantee in 2008.
Dulce lives and works between Mexico and New York.

https://www.dulcepinzon.com/

Social Shirt Project for people with difficulty identifying left from right side

This project is a set of video works, objects, performance and garments, which arise from the artist’s inability to deal with his sense of Left-Right laterality. The discussion is mixed with the political sphere as a reading of the current ideological polarisation in Brazil and the world. The video, filmed with a drone, shows the artist performing as an automaton and confused traffic warden at an intersection in São Paulo, indicating random directions to cars. His work questions the conduct of the body and the subject, ideological manipulations, pointing to nihilistic and cynical horizons in politics and life.

Victor De La Rocque. Belém do Pará, Brazil, 1984

Victor de La Rocque (1985, Belém-PA, Brazil) is a multiple artist, he studied music at Carlos Gomes Conservatory, performing arts at the Federal University of Pará, undergraduate and graduate in visual arts at the University of Amazônia and mastering in visual arts at UNESP. He has been participating in exhibitions, festivals and artistic residencies in Brazil and abroad. Artistic Residency at FAAP (São Paulo), Grand Prize of Arte Pará 2008, exhibition Chaos and Effect, Against Wild Thought (Itaú Cultural), Performance Arte Brasil (MAM-RJ), Amazonian Video Art (CCA Glasgow), Pororoca: a Amazônia no MAR (Museu de Arte do Rio de Janeiro), Amazônia – Ciclos da modernidade (CCBB-RJ), Amazônia: Lugar da Experiência, had his first solo exhibition at Paço das Artes/MIS (São Paulo), The Performance Arcade (The Papa Museum-New Zealand). His works are in the collections of the Museum of Art of Rio de Janeiro, MACRS (Porto Alegre-RS), Defibrillator Gallery (Chicago-USA), Museu da Universidade Federal do Pará (Amazoniana Collection), Casa das Onze Janelas (Belém-PA) and Fundação Rômulo Maiorana (Belém-PA). He lives and works between São Paulo-SP and Belém-PA.

http://cargocollective.com/victordelarocque

Demonstration

Michael Wesely experiments with overexposure in long-term analogue photographic processes and captures images that accumulate movements and processes of the city. The photographs in the Museum of Democracy were taken in São Paulo, Brazil, on 17 April 2016, when the Chamber of Deputies voted to open impeachment proceedings against former president Dilma Rousseff, elected in 2014. Wesely photographed street rallies in Vale do Anhangabaú, where an anti-impeachment protest took place, and on Paulista Avenue, where a pro-impeachment rally was held. The images capture the democratic schism that still plagues Brazil, and a historic moment that will take time to assimilate.

Michael Wesely / Munich, Germany, 1963

Michael Wesely (born 1963 in Munich) is a German art photographer who is best known for his photos of cities, buildings, landscapes, and still lives of flowers taken with a special ultra-long exposure technique. Wesely has received several awards and honors for his work, including a 1995 scholarship by the German Academic Exchange Service DAAD to produce photographs in the Netherlands, and a scholarship by the Free State of Bavaria for work in the US in 1999. In 2004, he was commissioned by the Museum of Modern Art in New York to produce a large-scale project titled the Open Shutter Project. He has participated in many international biennials and have had several solo shows worldwide. Born in Munich, Germany in 1963, he lives and works in Berlin, Germany.

https://wesely.org/

VIDEO INSTALLATION

A surveillance camera from inside Galería CIMA is focused on the Plaza Italia/”Plaza Dignidad” (Italy/Dignity Square) in downtown Santiago, the epicentre of the social revolts. In spite of excessive police violence and repression, the movements achieved to move forward a referendum for writing a new constitution that will replace the one existing since 1980. This was composed during the civic-military dictatorship lead by General Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990). 

MILESTONES
24 | 10 | 2.019 On the seventh day of the social outbreak, the CENTINELA camera begins its transmissions from the Plaza de la Dignidad through the YouTube channel of Galería CIMA.
25 | 10 | 2.019 The largest demonstration in Chile takes place, with the participation of more than 1.2 million people in Santiago and more than 3 million throughout the country. The slogans are aimed at ending the policies inherited from the military dictatorship, which ended “democratically” 30 years ago.
04 | 10 | 2.019  Two policewomen are hit by Molotov cocktails in the middle of a demonstration in Plaza Dignidad.
08 | 11 | 2.019 A banner reading “Plaza de la Dignidad” is hoisted for the first time. On the same day, Gustavo Gatica loses his sight when he is hit by police repression tools.
09 | 11 | 2.019 President Sebastián Piñera says he has received information that foreign governments have intervened here.
12 | 11 | 2.019  The light collective TRIMEX performs a laser projection on the buildings around the Plaza de la Dignidad, in allusion to the increase in victims of eye trauma.
21 | 11 | 2.019 Amnesty International publishes its report after observing the violence in the area and states, “The deliberate policy of harming demonstrators points to the commander’s responsibility.”
25 | 11 | 2.019 After an emergency meeting, the political parties agree to call a referendum on the drafting of a new constitution and sign the “Agreement for Peace.” On the same day, the Minister of Health, Jaime Mañalich, affirms that “our health system is one of the best and most efficient on the planet.”
26 | 11 | 2.019 Fabiola Campillay is blinded by the police in the early hours of the morning. Together with Gustavo Gatica, they become icons of human rights violations.
27 | 11 | 2.019 Mauricio Fredes is electrocuted to death when he falls into an electrified pit, while police repression is exercised in the middle of a demonstration in the Dignidad-Alameda axis. The same day the cultural center “Cine Arte Alameda” burns down.
29 | 11 | 2.019 The feminist collective LAS TESIS performs the intervention “The Rapist in Your Way,” a performance that has been replicated by women around the world.
06 | 12 | 2.019 The light collective formed by Daniela Valenzuela and Anonilux performs the intervention “Lights for Memory” as a tribute to the 27 people who lost their lives to the repressive measures of the state.
11 | 12 | 2.019 The constitutional accusation against the Minister of the Interior, Andrés Chadwick, is approved.
01 | 01 | 2020 The people of Chile gather in the Plaza de la Dignidad to celebrate the New Year, as a sign of optimism in the face of the reform process taking place. From the Galería CIMA, illuminations are projected on the Plaza and interventions are carried out together with the collectives Daniela Valenzuela/Anonilux and Delight Lab.
28 | 02 | 2020 The Violeta Parra Museum burns down during the demonstrations in the Plaza de la Dignidad.
08 | 03 | 2020 The gathering of more than two million women in the Plaza de la Dignidad becomes a worldwide reference for the feminist struggle.The gathering of more than two million women in the Plaza de la Dignidad becomes a worldwide reference for the feminist struggle.
21 | 03 | 2020 The Minister of Health, Jaime Mañalich, pronounces his famous phrase in relation to the covid-19 pandemic “what happens if the virus mutates and becomes a good person?”.
03 | 04 | 2020 President Sebastián Piñera strolls through the Plaza de la Dignidad while Santiago is under a strict lockdown.
18 | 05 | 2020 The light collective Delight Lab projects the word “hunger” on the Telefonica Tower in Santiago, alluding to the solidarity soup kitchens that have spontaneously formed in vulnerable areas of the city.
24 | 06 | 2020  Day of the Indigenous Peoples, an issue repeatedly addressed in the national contingency due to the territorial conflicts that have been dragging on since colonization.
25 | 06 | 2020 Santiago is under quarantine.
25 | 10 | 2020 The national referendum results with a large majority in the drafting of a new Constitution under the direction of a Constitutional Convention composed of democratically elected members. The Plaza de la Dignidad once again became the center of celebration, and from Galería CIMA the word RENACE (“be reborn”) was projected by the Delight Lab collective.
02 | 11 | 2020 The Minister of Culture, Arts and Heritage, Consuelo Valdés, affirms that “a peso put in culture will not be put in another program or need of the citizens.”

TEAM:
Idea & Production: Trinidad Lopetegui, Daniel Aguayo Mozó
Audiovisual documentation: Sebastián Rojas
Editing, montage and post-production: Harold Illanes

Galería CIMA / Santiago de Chile (Chile)

We are a cultural space located in Plaza Dignidad. After the social outburst that led to the paralysis of all our activities, we installed a camera that has uninterruptedly transmitted what happens in the square, consolidating itself as a truthful and impartial coverage of the demonstrations, where several milestones have been recorded, such as the historic march of October 25th, New Year 2020, and 8M.

Team: Trinidad Lopetegui, Daniel Aguayo Mozó, Sebastián Rojas, Harold Illanes

Galería CIMA
Merced 22, of 1101
Santiago de Chile
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