Julia Mensch

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