Tag: Zapatismo

Practices of Insurgent Learning Spaces

AURELIANO & NAFTA | Mia Eve Rollow & Caleb Duarte

Somos Fragmentos de la luz que impide que todo sea noche exhibition – Open / Abierto 15 – 30 September 2021, Mo-Fr / L-D 10:00 – 22:00 Sa 10:00-14:00 Location / Lugar Centro Cultural La Corrala, Museo de Artes y Tradiciones Populares Calle de Carlos Arniches, 3, Madrid

An important aspect of creating “other worlds” through Zapatismo is the belief that each culture, each language and each individual creates its own understanding of beauty, normality, happiness and autonomy. The cultures of capitalism and consumerism introduced by NAFTA persuade large populations that there is only one way toward progress and prosperity. Here, Aureliano Martinez shapes his own image of beauty outside of the commercialization of the body.

20 YEARS AFTER NAFTA, 
MANY WORLDS ARE POSSIBLE

https://www.miaeverollow.org/creative-time-reports/4581907570

Caleb Duarte and Mia Eve Rollow from EDELO (En Donde Era La UNO/Where the United Nations Used to Be) explore the effects of the North American Free Trade Agreement in Chiapas, Mexico’s poorest state and the site of the Zapatista revolution sparked by the agreement.

Mexico was said to be one step away from entering the “First World.” It was December 1992, and Mexico’s then-president, Carlos Salinas, signed the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The global treaty came with major promises of economic development, driven by increased farm production and foreign investment, that would end emigration and eliminate poverty. But, as the environmentalist Gustavo Castro attests in our video, the results have been the complete opposite—increased emigration, hunger and poverty.

While the world was entertaining the idea of the end of times supposedly predicted by the Mayan calendar, on December 21, 2012, over 40,000 Mayan Zapatistas took to the streets to make their presence known in a March of Silence. The indigenous communities of Chiapas—Tzeltales, Tzotziles, Tojolobales, Choles, Zoques and Mames—began their mobilization from their five centers of government, which are called Caracoles. In silence they entered the fog of a December winter and occupied the same squares, in the same cities, that they had descended upon as ill-equipped rebels on January 1, 1994, the day NAFTA came into effect.

In light of the 20th anniversary of NAFTA’s implementation and the Zapatista uprising, we set out to explore both the positive and negative effects of the international treaty. The poverty caused by NAFTA, and the waves of violence, forced migration and environmental disasters it has precipitated, should not be understated. The republic of Mexico is under threat from multinational corporations like the Canadian mining company Blackfire Explorations, which is threatening to sue the state of Chiapas for $800 million under NAFTA Chapter 11 because its government closed a Blackfire barite mine after pressure from local environmental activists like Mariano Abarca Roblero, who was murdered in 2009.

Still, one result of the corporate extraction of Mexico’s natural resources and displacement of its people that has followed the treaty has been the organization and strengthening of initiatives by indigenous communities to construct autonomy from the bottom up. Seeing that their own governments cannot respond to popular demands without retribution from corporations, the people of Mexico are asking about alternatives: “What is it that we do want?” The Zapatista revolution reminds us that not only another world, but many other worlds, are possible.

Original Title / Título Original Aureliano, 2012 Director / Dirección Mia Rollow y Caleb Duarte Running time / Duración 5:50′
Original Title / Título Original Nafta, 2012 Director / Dirección Mia Rollow y Caleb Duarte Running time / Duración 12′

Mia Rollow and Caleb Duarte are two American artists who traveled to San Cristóbal de las Casas from California in 2008 to settle there. In this context, they invited Emory Douglas, Minister of Culture of the Black Panthers of the United States, to carry out projects with the indigenous communities of Chiapas. From this encounter, ZAPANTERA NEGRA was born, an integration of the imaginaries of the Afro-American and Zapatista peoples in resistance and in organizing a new life in autonomy and freedom. In murals, embroidery, performances and videos, the images of the creative struggle of both communities on the north and south side of the Rio Grande border are intermingled. This interaction of imaginaries certainly has a political background that unites both struggles. But also, the reception of the indigenous communities towards this Afro-American proposal could be given by the “nahual” with which the Black Panthers present themselves to the Zapatistas. The nahual is a spiritual entity that corresponds to each person, town and territory and that takes the form of an animal. For the Zapatistas, the cultural identification with the jaguar and the bat is ancient and is revived as collective empowerment through the use of clothing elements that invoke these nahuales: the red scarf to the jaguar and the black balaclava to the bat. A black panther is then the nahual of another sister people, which communicates and empowers through the union of forces through images. In this sense, to understand the configuration of ZAPANTERA NEGRA, it is not only necessary to understand the political struggles but also the spiritual forces that are mobilized in the territories.

Mia Rollow y Caleb Duarte son dos artistas estadounidenses que desde California viajaron a San Cristóbal de las Casas en 2008 para establecerse allí. En ese contexto, invitaron a Emory Douglas, Ministro de Cultura de los Black Panthers de los Estados Unidos, a realizar proyectos con las comunidades indígenas de Chiapas. De este encuentro nace ZAPANTERA NEGRA, una integración de los imaginarios de los pueblos afroamericanos y zapatistas en resistencia y en organización de una nueva vida en autonomía y libertad. En murales, bordados, performances y videos, las imágenes de la lucha creativa de ambas comunidades al lado norte y sur de la frontera del Rio Grande, se entremezclan. Esta interacción de imaginarios  tiene por cierto un trasfondo político que aúna ambas luchas. Pero también, la recepción de las comunidades indígenas hacia esta propuesta afroamericana podría estar dada por el “nahual” con el que se presentan los Panteras Negras ante los Zapatistas.  El nahual es una entidad espiritual que corresponde a cada persona, pueblo y territorio y que toma forma de animal. Para los zapatistas, la identificación con el jaguar y el murciélago culturalmente es de antigua data y revive como empoderamiento colectivo a través del uso de elementos de vestuario que invocan a estos nahuales: el pañuelo rojo al jaguar y el pasamontañas negro al murciélago.  Una pantera negra es entonces el nahual de otro pueblo hermano, que se comunica y potencia a través de la unión de fuerzas a través de las imágenes.  En este sentido, para entender la configuración de ZAPANTERA NEGRA no solo hay que entender las luchas políticas sino también las fuerzas espirituales que se movilizan por los territorios.

Mia Eve Rollow was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1984. She received the Creative and Performing Arts Scholarship to attend the University of Maryland where she received her BFA in 2006. Rollow completed her graduate studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago earning a master’s degree in 2009. Her artworks are often performative in nature, and due to her fascination with alchemy and shamanistic traditions, her work usually revolves the physical and spiritual world. A college classmate, Caleb Duarte, invited her to Mexico to work on an experimental project based around the Zapatista movement. She later moved to Chiapas, Mexico where she co-founded the EDELO arts collective along with Duarte. Mia Eve Rollow works in a variety of media including video, painting, installation, and performance art. In 2017, Rollow had a solo exhibition titled, Eve: A Series, which featured large-scale video projections of natural phenomena. She primarily produces art through EDELO in collaboration with its community members.

Caleb Duarte is best known for creating temporary installations using construction type frameworks such as beds of dirt, cement, and objects suggesting basic shelter. His installations within institutional settings become sights for performance as interpretations of his community collaborations. Duarte has created public works and community performances at the World Social Forum in Mumbai India, Santiago de Cuba, Cuba, El Pital, Honduras, and throughout Mexico and the United States. He has collaborated with autonomous indigenous Zapatista collectives, communities in movement, and working children and refugees. Duarte is co-founder, along with artist MIa Eve Rollow, of EDELO, a Spanish acronym for (Where the United Nations Used To BE). EDELO was a house of art in movement and an inter-comunal artist residency of diverse practices in Chiapas Mexico. The project challenged the traditional artist residency and art spaces in that it placed residents alongside rural autonomous communities that have been using performance, theater, poetry, and a rich visual culture to demand drastic social, political, and economic change. The space invited collaborators to live and create within a period of time. Residents were from PHDs to jugglers, contemporary artist, activist, educators, rural farmers, and autonomous community members. Through EDELO, he is lead facilitator of ZAPANTERA NEGRA, in collaboration with Rigo 23, Emory Douglas and Mia Eve Rollow. Zapantera Negra united Zapatistas (EZLN) with Black Panther Party esthetics to investigate the use of the body and visual culture in both distinct political and artistic movements. Caleb Duarte is profesor of scupture at Fresno City College in Fresno California where he has his studio. He continues to work with Central American unaccompanied minors currently seeking asylum working in community performance, sculpture, film, and painting.

   

photo courtesy of Free Home University
Practices of Insurgent Learning Spaces

PEOPLE OF FLOUR WATER AND SALT by Chto Delat

photo courtesy of Free Home University

Somos fragmentos de la luz que impide que todo sea noche exhibition – Open / Abierto 15 – 30 September 2021, Mo-Sun / L-D 10:00 – 22:00 Location / Lugar Centro Cultural La Corrala, Museo de Artes y Tradiciones Populares Calle de Carlos Arniches, 3, Madrid

The learning film People of Flour, Salt and Water realized by the Russian art collective during the 2019 session of Free Home University result of A long-term militant and artistic research started in 2015 with A Slow Orientation in Zapatism, exploring the influence of Zapatista’s politics and poetics, beyond the original context of their struggle in Chiapas, Mexico. A collective study of some early texts of Subcomandante Marcos with a group of refugees and asylum seekers, artists and activists will result into an investigation in the form of a learning-film. Through somatic, dance and vocal exercises, living together, and filmmaking, the group will resonate with aspects of Zapatismo, -re-imagining a politics of the everyday, and forms of autonomy and solidarity to undo the neoliberal pervasiveness in every sphere of life.  

Continue reading “PEOPLE OF FLOUR WATER AND SALT by Chto Delat” →
image: Still from the film
Practices of Insurgent Learning Spaces

ABOUT THE FOOTPRINTS, WHAT WE HIDE IN POCKETS AND OTHER SHADOWS OF HOPE by Chto Delat

image: Still from the film

Somos fragmentos de la luz que impide que todo sea noche exhibition – Open / Abierto 15 – 30 September 2021, Mo-Sun / L-D 10:00 – 22:00 Location / Lugar Centro Cultural La Corrala, Museo de Artes y Tradiciones Populares Calle de Carlos Arniches, 3, Madrid

A film in seven portraits / Una película en siete retratos

This public performance and the film were realized in collaboration with participants of the Solidarity school in Pireus and its teachers. It comes as a result of the process of integration of few key texts of Subcommandante Markos into educational process of learning Greek language. This texts and meeting with Stavros Stavrides who run a seminar about long relations between Zapatista movement and political activists in Greece have created a new situation of learning in between many real and imaginary situations.  In the performance we integrate two narratives – one comes from the Zapatista texts where Durito – the fictional beetle character explains in metaphorical way some basic ideas of Zapatistas movement and personal stories from the life of the performance participants – the refuges from different countries who arrived to live in Greece. These narratives are represented in the form of shadow theater. It was realized as a result of the workshop under direction of Stathis Markopoulos who introduces the participants into basic methods and organization of shadow theater. In this film we see how reality intertwine with the fiction and our imagination is overcoming the cruel limitation of our world and creates a shadow of hope. The film also reflects a production situation during pandemic and how we are able to deal with limitation brutally imposed on our lives. 

Continue reading “ABOUT THE FOOTPRINTS, WHAT WE HIDE IN POCKETS AND OTHER SHADOWS OF HOPE by Chto Delat” →
photo courtesy of Francisco Lion 2018 ©
Somos Fragmentos de la Luz que impide que Todo sea Noche

EN LA CLANDESTINIDAD

photo courtesy of Francisco Lion 2018 ©

Somos fragmentos de la luz que impide que todo sea noche exhibition – Open / Abierto 15 – 30 September 2021, Mo-Sun / L-D 10:00 – 22:00 Location / Lugar Centro Cultural La Corrala, Museo de Artes y Tradiciones Populares Calle de Carlos Arniches, 3, Madrid

Subcomandante Galeano says in one of his speeches during the Zapatista Caracoles Film Festival “Puy ta Cuxlejaltic” that the arts have always been present from the beginning in Zapatismo. But that the cinema is more recent. He remembers that in the years of the underground (1983-1993), in the jungle they would tell each other the Bruce Lee films. That in general, the genre of martial arts is the one that the militiamen liked the most, while the Vietnamese film “Punto de Enlace” better identified the Zapatista peasants. Anyway, the conditions of this cinema were precarious, wandering, nomadic. It was projected in 16mm on sheets and underwear. When the DVD and the Blu-ray appear, and less you see cinema. As Galeano says, “if we didn’t see him when he was bad, we are less going to see him when he’s great (spectacular)”. This is the first time that cinema that is part of the Zapatista imagination has been organized and exhibited, as spectators in hiding.

Dice el Subcomandante Galeano en una de sus intervenciones durante el Festival de Cine en los Caracoles zapatistas “Puy ta Cuxlejaltic” que las artes han estado siempre presentes desde el principio en el Zapatismo. Pero que el cine es más reciente. Recuerda que en los años de la clandestinidad (1983-1993), en la jungla se contaban unos a otros las películas de Bruce Lee. Que en general, el género de las artes marciales es el que más gustaba a los milicianos, mientras que la película vietnamita “Punto de Enlace” identificaba mejor a los campesinos zapatistas. Como fuera, las condiciones de este cine eran precarias, errantes, nómades. Se proyectaba en 16mm sobre sábanas y ropa interior. Cuando aparece el DVD y el Blu-ray, ya menos se ve cine. Como dice Galeano, “si no lo veíamos cuando estaba malo, menos lo vamos a ver cuando está chingón (espectacular)”. Esta es la primera vez que se organiza y exhibe ese cine que forma parte del imaginario del zapatismo, como espectadores en la clandestinidad.

Mix of scenes from films / Escenas de diversas películas Bruce Lee, films vietnamitas, “La Batalla de Moscú” Editing / Montaje Tino Varela y Natalia Arcos, 2021 Running time / Duración 8′

   

Somos Fragmentos de la Luz que impide que Todo sea Noche

PROMEDIOS

Somos fragmentos de la luz que impide que todo sea noche exhibition – Open / Abierto 15 – 30 September 2021, Mo-Sun / L-D 10:00 – 22:00 Location / Lugar Centro Cultural La Corrala, Museo de Artes y Tradiciones Populares Calle de Carlos Arniches, 3, Madrid

What essentially makes up this “second audiovisual territory” is a moment of direct exchange, mutual learning, and close collaboration between external agents sympathetic to Zapatismo and the EZLN support bases that took place between 1998-2008 in Chiapas. Entering this territory of symbiotic mixture implies telling the story of “PROMEDIOS”, the American-Mexican audiovisual agency founded in Chicago, USA, by Alexandra Halkin. She arrived in Chiapas in 1995 to film a caravan of humanitarian aid for the Zapatistas; It was in this process that she detected the great interest of her colleagues in learning about the use of this technology; Well, there were hundreds of reporters and documentary makers, but none of those cameras was in the hands of the Zapatistas themselves. It was thus that, due to the desire of the support bases and the authorization of the EZLN command, plus the financial support of directors such as Oliver Stone, the idea of ​​founding PROMEDIOS was conceived. Then, complete camera and sound equipment arrived in Chiapas, as well as audiovisual instructors, mostly Mexican, committed to training Zapatistas in analog and digital video, post-production, audio, satellite television, and Internet access. During its 10 years, the binational organization trained hundreds of Zapatistas interested in learning these technologies for the registration and communication of their own processes, considering video as another defense weapon against the attacks of the army, paramilitaries, government and landowners. These works, carried out under conditions of struggle, portray the collective work of agriculture and coffee, autonomous education, women’s participation, traditional medicine and the history of the struggle for land, among other topics.

Lo que compone esencialmente este “segundo territorio audiovisual” es un momento de intercambio directo, aprendizaje mutuo y colaboración estrecha entre agentes externos simpatizantes al zapatismo y bases de apoyo del EZLN que se da entre 1998-2008 en Chiapas. Ingresar a este territorio de mezcla simbiótica implica contar la historia de “PROMEDIOS”, la agencia audiovisual estadounidense-mexicana fundada en Chicago, EEUU, por Alexandra Halkin. Ella llegó en 1995 a Chiapas a filmar una caravana de ayuda humanitaria para el zapatismo; fue en este proceso que detectó el gran interés de los propios compañeros por aprender del uso de esta tecnología; pues, habían cientos de reporteros y documentalistas, pero ninguna de esas cámaras estaba en manos de los propios zapatistas. Fue así que, ante el deseo de las bases de apoyo y la autorización de la comandancia del EZLN, más el apoyo económico de directores como Oliver Stone, se gestó la idea de fundar PROMEDIOS. Llegaron entonces a Chiapas equipos completos de cámara y sonido, así como instructores audiovisuales, en su mayoría mexicanos, comprometidos con la capacitación de zapatistas en video análogo y digital, post producción, audio, televisión vía satélite y acceso a Internet. Durante sus 10 años, la organización binacional formó a cientos de zapatistas interesados en aprender estas tecnologías para el registro y la comunicación de sus propios procesos, considerando a la vez al vídeo como otra arma de defensa ante las embestidas del ejército, paramilitares, gobierno y latifundistas.  Estos trabajos realizados en condiciones de lucha, retratan los trabajos colectivos de agricultura y de café, la educación autónoma, las participaciones de mujeres, la medicina tradicional y la historia de la lucha por la tierra, entre otros temas.

Original Title / Título Original El Curandero de los Pueblos Indígenas de los Altos, Chiapas, 1999 Direction / Dirección Promedios y compañeros zapatistas Running time / Duración 34′ 
Original Title / Título Original La Otra Comunicación, 2009 Direction / Dirección Promedios y compañeros zapatista Running time / Duración 7:47′

   

photo courtesy of Francisco Lion 2018 ©
Somos Fragmentos de la Luz que impide que Todo sea Noche

TERCIOS COMPAS: Media Zapatista Agency

Una promotora de audiovisual de la agencia de medios zapatista TERCIOS COMPAS, photo courtesy of Francisco Lion 2018 ©

Somos fragmentos de la luz que impide que todo sea noche exhibition – Open / Abierto 15 – 30 September 2021, Mo-Sun / L-D 10:00 – 22:00 Location / Lugar Centro Cultural La Corrala, Museo de Artes y Tradiciones Populares Calle de Carlos Arniches, 3, Madrid

This area of the exhibition presents videos that are currently being made by the Zapatista video promoters of the support base communities and that are edited and distributed both in the communication centers of Los Caracoles and on the Internet, as postscript of the communiqués of the command. Once hundreds of Zapatistas were educated in audiovisual communication, they now teach others, who take their cameras and audio equipment, recording in and for all the events, seminars and festivals that the EZLN organizes. The material conditions of this work are generally optimal: new HD video cameras, live sound equipment and editors on Mac computers with free software. But the contextual conditions continue to be difficult: in addition to the usual lack of electrical power in the field, there is also the difficulty of Internet connectivity in the communities and eventual hacks by the Mexican government. However, the team of young men and women that make up “Los Tercios Compas”, continues to work and constantly produce videos.

En esta área nos encontramos con los videos que realizan actualmente los promotores de vídeo zapatistas de las comunidades bases de apoyo y que se editan y distribuyen tanto en los centros de comunicación de los Caracoles como en la Internet,  como postdata de los comunicados de la comandancia. Una vez que se educaron cientos de zapatistas en comunicación audiovisual, ellos ahora enseñan a otros, quienes toman sus cámaras y equipos de audio, grabando en y para todos los eventos, seminarios y festivales que el EZLN organiza. Las condiciones materiales de ese trabajo generalmente son óptimas: nuevas cámaras de video HD, equipos de sonido en directo y editoras en computadoras Mac con softwares libres. Pero las condiciones contextuales siguen siendo difíciles: a la falta habitual de energía eléctrica en terreno, se suma la dificultad de conectividad a la Internet en las comunidades y eventuales hackeos del gobierno mexicano. Sin embargo, el equipo de jóvenes hombres y mujeres que componen “Los Tercios Compas”, sigue trabajando y produciendo constantemente videos.

Original Title / Título Original Choferas nº1, 2019 Direction / Dirección Tercios Compas Running time / Duración 3′
Original Title / Título Original Caracol 10 Patria Nueva, 2019 Direction / Dirección Tercios Compas Running time / Duración 5:35′
Original Title / Título La primera de varias. Café Zapatista, 2017 Direction / Dirección Tercios Compas Running time / Duración 4′ 
Original Title / Título Original El pilar de la autonomía y la vida de los partidistas, 2017 Direction / Dirección Tercios Compas Running time / Duración 30′

Future of Art & Cultural Institutions

UNCOMMON GROUND: ART ECOLOGY AND DE-COLONIAL FREEDOM | T. J. Demos in conversation with Mao Mollona
School of Mutation within the framework of the iteration Film Archive and Militant Cinema. The online meeting is on Tuesday, June 15th at 20:00 CET; 11:00 PTS.  Join us on Zoom https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85226477196  Meeting ID: 852 2647 7196 – Streaming online on IRI YouTube Channel – Share the FB event

Having worked for more than two decades at the intersection of art, de-colonial politics and ecological justice, art historian T. J. Demos has consistently theorized and written about art as an experimental practice of “world making”, based on speculative knowledge creation and posed against racial and colonial capitalism, emerging in the dialogical encounter between artists and various communities of action and social movements. Demos’ vision of “ecology as intersectionality” locates revolutionary agency at the crossroad, and, as an articulation, of different, socio-political, and economic fields, and out of the labour of connection, mediation, and recuperation of shifting and diverse “uncommon grounds”. In conversation with Mao Mollona, Demos will discuss contemporary practices of de-colonial and anti-capitalist artistic engagement, particularly resurgent forms of black and indigenous activism. Besides, in line with recent IRI’s iterations, he will also discuss his involvement with the Zapatista political experiment in Chiapas, considered as a form of anti-colonial and anti-capitalist socio-political experiment, a revolutionary indigenous aesthetics and an experiential practice of land-based autonomy and self-determination. 

Photo Curtesy of EDELO, Zapantera Negra. The installation was at Fresno State University H street graduate gallery.
We have a situation here

ZAPANTERA NEGRA | An Artistic Encounter Between Black Panthers and Zapatistas

Photo Curtesy of EDELO, Zapantera Negra. The installation was at Fresno State University H street graduate gallery.

The School of Mutation within the framework of the iteration  We have a situation here holds an artistic encounter between Black Panthers and Zapatistas on Thursday MARCH 11th at 19:00 CET. Join us on Zoom https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89402223075 Meeting ID: 894 0222 3075 – Streaming online on IRI YouTube Channel – Share the FB event

What is the role of revolutionary art in times of distress? When Emory Douglas, former Minister of Culture of the Black Panther Party, accepted an invitation from the art collective EDELO and Rigo 23 to meet with autonomous Indigenous and Zapatista communities in Chiapas, Mexico, they addressed just this question. Zapantera Negra is the result of their encounter. It unites the bold aesthetics, revolutionary dreams, and dignified declarations of two leading movements that redefine emancipatory politics in the twentieth and twenty-first century.

The artists of the Black Panthers and the Zapatistas were born into a centuries-long struggle against racial capitalism and colonialism, state repression and international war and plunder. Not only did these two movements offer the world an enduring image of freedom and dignified rebellion, they did so with rebellious style, putting culture and aesthetics at the forefront of political life. A powerful elixir of hope and determination, Zapantera Negra provides a galvanizing presentation of interviews, militant artwork, and original documents from these two movements’ struggle for dignity and liberation.

EDELO (Where the United Nations Used to Be) 

In the Fall of 2009, over one hundred displaced indigenous community members occupied the offices of the United Nations, located in San Cristóbal de las Casa, Chiapas, Mexico. The offices were taken over in the hope of gaining international attention from humanitarian organizations. After a few months of the occupation, the United Nations simply decided to find another building and moved.

A few months later, Mia Eva Rollow and Caleb Duarte, repurposed the building.  It is a part of an investigation into how Art, in all its disciplines and contradictions, can take the supposed role of such institutional bodies to create understanding, empathy, and to serve as a tool for imagining alternatives to a harmful and violent system that we do not have to accept.

Inspired by the 1994 indigenous Zapatista uprising, where word and poetry are used to inspire a generation to imagine ‘other’ possible worlds, EDELO has retained the name of the UN office.  From 2009 to 2014, EDELO, Where The United Nations Used to Be, was an artist run project in Chiapas, Mexico that created sculptural performances and community events through relational aesthetics, social practice, and social sculpture. EDELO centered its practice as an intercultural artist residency of diverse practices and an ever-changing experimental art laboratory and safe house. The work at its core focused on the lessons and use of art by the EZLN, the Zapatista autonomous indigenous movement in Chiapas, Mexico that has used art as a main tool to demand immediate and drastic social and economic change as a response to 500 years of invisibility, oppression, and neglect. The works consisted of artist residencies in Zapatista territory as well as at our art center and gallery. The emerging aesthetic was one of urgency in the face of the continuing clash between colonial and Mayan Mexican indigenous worldviews. 

EDELO Migrante  2014 – Present

Once an experimental intercultural art space and residency of diverse practices inhabiting the building of the former UN, Edelo is now nomadic collectives creating works with diverse communities in the Americas.

Our work is of urgency. It is theater, sculpture, social practice, dance, painting organizing festivals in the spirit of true collaboration and shared authorship with the communities and art spaces that we work with.  URGENT ART is a specific working methodology that collaborates with artist from different disciplines in the development of art. It encourages us to listen to what communities are expressing and turning that into a visible living experience. This augments the possibilities of converting experienced moments of tragedy into situations of healing.

Natalia Arcos - Un mundo donde quepan muchos mundos
We have a situation here

UN MUNDO DONDE QUEPAN MUCHOS MUNDOS | Natalia Arcos
The School of Mutation within the framework of the iteration  We have a situation here holds this online conversation with Natalia Arcos on Tuesday FEBRUARY 23rd at 19:00 CET. Join us on Zoom https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82655470474 Meeting ID: 826 5547 0474 – Streaming online on IRI YouTube Channel – Share the FB event

The Zapatismo Movement breaks in many respects with traditional forms of politics. It does so by opening spaces at a creative distance from the State, and by constantly experimenting with innovative ideas and strategic perspectives. In this session, I will give an insight on the organic role that aesthetics and poetics have played in the politics of this revolutionary movement. In the first part I will provide a general overview on this theme. Some of my views are informed by the fieldwork that I conducted in Chiapas, México, between 2013 and 2020. Then, I will talk and show my experience of curating two exhibitions on Zapatista art in Nottingham, England (2015) and Havana, Cuba (2018).

See more here: https://artezapatistaencuba.webnode.mx/?fbclid=IwAR3vpL_ItUUF550-TndfS_63G0Cr3HvPL7WM6sgLaOj1B0nRzPSwz8_603g

BIO

Natalia Arcos (Santiago de Chile, 1979) has a Degree in Theory and Art History from the University of Chile and a Master in Contemporary Art from Paris IV-Sorbonne University, where she was the first latinamerican accepted. As an independent curator, she has done twenty exhibitions in Chile, Argentina, Portugal, Spain, France, Italy, Cuba, England and Greece. From 2008 to 2013, she was Programming Director of the Chilean Television Channel specialized in art, ARTV. From 2013 to 2020, she was member of GIAP (Grupo de Investigación en Arte y Política) based in Chiapas, México, where she also directed the center for artistic residencies. Natalia was collaborator on the books “Los latidos del corazón nunca callan: poemas y canciones zapatistas” and “Para una estética de la liberación decolonial”invited by Professor Enrique Dussel. Actually, she follows a Master Degree in Sociology of Art at CESMECA Institute of University UNICACH, México.