Participating in the Venice Biennale allows Mexico to continue its commitment to supporting artists in taking the next step in their career, as well as curatorial work. It also allows it to position itself in the global conversation about art, where the country has always had a relevant participation, since the public is aware of its cultural wealth, says Jessica Berlanga, curator of the Mexico Pavilion in the 61st edition of the International Art Exhibition, which will begin on Saturday.
On this occasion the country is represented by the RojoNegro collective, made up of María Sosa (Morelia, 1985) and Noé Martínez (Morelia, 1986), with their project Invisible acts to sustain the universewhich uses means such as installation, performance and the sound.
“RojoNegro has been researching Mesoamerican cultures for many years, thanks to their own heritages, especially those of Noé. They have a lot of archival and ethnographic research work, their references are very clear; however, they have never been able to carry out a project as immersive as this one,” says Berlanga. There is no gallery support behind his participation, only his small studio.
ritual offering
Several ideas that they already had are integrated into this “ritual offering that is presented as a political act of displacing the power of individuals to collective power.” Invisible acts to sustain the universe It is also related to “the work they have done to understand the body as a memory archive and the one that brings the indigenous knowledge that is possessed. It is an act of remembering and also proposes a healing process,” the art critic specifies.
Upon entering the pavilion the first thing you see is a textile. “This piece, titled Tobaccooccurred in Cherán, a community of great importance for Mary and Noah. There is one of the most beautiful forests that the community has spent years protecting from narco and the government. The work was produced there with tobacco leaves, plants and minerals from the area. In Venice it is placed to protect the pavilion and the people who enter there, since tobacco has to do with protection, healing and the processes of altering consciousness.
“There is also a site-specific installation with a salt and mud floor created specifically for the Biennial. It represents the presence of the feminine, salt like sweat; tears, labor. It is a connection with the body; also with the work of Mesoamerican women in the salt mines. A thread of salt in the shape of a virgule – a Mesoamerican symbol of words and conversation – guides the visitor through a space in which breathing sets the rhythm of the work.”
On the salt line rests a series of 13 ceramic vessels in the shape of American birds, establishing a symbolic connection. Salt absorbs moisture and acquires a patina reminiscent of sweat. The project includes a video in which the artists carry out a work of performance that they have been developing for a decade, which they started together with Berlanga, in which they adopt a series of body postures from pre-Columbian vessels.
This exhibition has to do with “invoking the knowledge of the body, circulating indigenous knowledge and bringing it to a place of high visibility, such as the pavilion, a ritual that is offered to their ancestors and to all the people who work to sustain the universe, but are not visible.” A way of understanding intelligence beyond the human also stands out: “it speaks a lot about the intelligence of materials, bodies, plants and animals, especially now that we question intelligence with AI,” he indicates.
For Berlanga, RojoNegro’s particular position calls for “slowing down and being able to listen deeply to the crises that we are all experiencing. It responds to the invitation made by the artistic director of the Biennial, Koyo Kouoh – who died a year ago – in the sense that indigenous knowledge is very much alive and that in this past there is a sustainable future.”
According to the curator, the work of Sosa and Martínez reflects “above all an anxiety regarding the future. It is also a position regarding the damage caused by capitalism and such accelerated consumption. It is something that many artists of their generation share. The destruction of the natural world and, with that, that of many epistmologies in which with this knowledge there are ways of living together. Beyond the specific, for me it is a concern about the crisis that capitalism generates.”
Currently, Berlanga is chief curator of the University of California, San Diego campus, where she directs a collection of public art that is site-specific commissions. He is also leading a new museum that will open in 2027, which will explore the relationships between art and technology.