Working Tongues

Artists

Giulia Bruno *  Manuel La Rosa *  María Méndez *  Nur Matta *  Miguel Pérez *  Sergio Valdivia

Curated by
ERROR
Nina Fiocco with the accompaniment of Oscar Formacio
(curatorial assistant María Jose Casazza)

Soft Opening 08.09.02022 5-9 p.m.
Talk Nina Fiocco & Oscar Cueto 12.09.2022 12 – 2 pm

Open Days
9., 10., 11., 15., 16., 22., 23., 30.9.2022 4 – 7 pm
12., 17. 9., 1.10.2022 11 am – 2pm

Duration 09.09. – 30.09. 2022

FOOD WORDS & STORIES

In Cooperation with bmkoes


Pictures of the Exhibition

     

Copyright Mute Insurgent


WORKING TONGUES – Nina Fiocco

Sometimes absolutely ordinary objects, spread in people’s common life, become a memorandum of something more important. For a long time, Error‘s1 table has been a wood board inherited from an artist’s studio. When changing spaces, the board became a desk for the residents and we inherited another table, a table so heavy that the pre- vious tenants of the new apartment, artists themselves, had not been able to move it, so they decided to leave it to us. Therefore, it seems that this table reminds us everyday the importance of reflecting on what we inherited – it is meant what is present although absent – when sitting together. At Error, then, the table becomes a site for negotiation and self recognition: on one side it’s the place in which we talk and discuss with artists, curators and members of our community on pro- posals and projects; on the other side, in “the house with an ajar door” that occupies Error, the table is the space in which we and our com- munity connect our own lives by sharing dinners and profound, funny, painful or intimate talks. So, I don’t consider it to be a coincidence, that during the five years of existence of our project, many artists have decided to work with us on the act of cooking and that these projects have mostly approached the relationship between their own biography and food. One of the artists with whom we have deeply collaborated on these topics, Santo Miguelito Peréz, made us think about a key- word for the project: the word sazón. This is a Spanish term that, although it refers to the tangible act of cooking in a similar way to the English word “seasoning”, also presupposes a certain level of mistery; in fact, the sazón of each person is impossible to replicate and cap- ture with precision, but, at the same time, it is rooted in the particular life experience of those who cook and grow their food, revealing the memory of their present as well as their past.

The artists, presented in “Working tongues”, have investigated the territory of the „sazón“ at the crossing between the kitchen and trans- mission of culture through storytelling; the recognition of endemic and non-endemic natural species; the observation and the wisdom of cultivation. Therefore the artistic practices and works that emerge from these investigations often manage to unfold the discourse of hege- monic history, by revealing silenced presences and / or by redefining the experience of traditions and experiences that constitute devalued knowledge.
Miguel „Santo Miguelito“ Peréz (MX) explores directly the “sazón” of his family and native community in Cholula (central Mexico) to re- construct the history of urban and economic change in this area. María Méndez (CO) in her work between Colombia and Mexico, threads the heritage constituted by fragmentary indications of Afro-de- scendant cuisine in recipes, narratives and tools from different con- texts.
Giulia Bruno (IT) recollects in a documentary film a series of techno- logies and gestures of cultivation, dealing with the process of mig- ration faced by her family in Italy and insisting on the importance of constituting a vocabulary of caring.
Sergio Valdivia (MX) learned to make bread from a baker and music producer, coming from his own hometown Ecatepec; in this relation- ship, Sergio develops a series of works which arose through dialogue and exchange, and that are a subjective description of their common ground.
In other processes presented in the exhibition, the bodies of the artists or part of them are re-positioned at the center of the representation, producing a political statement, determined by their characteristics. Nur Matta (MX) uses the kitchen as a possibility to reconnect to her body and to use her new condition of slowness as a political strategy. Manuel La Rosa (CL) studies the relationship between the act of eating and the act of speaking, at the border of sexuality and identity.

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1 ERROR is an artist’s run space in Mexico City and Pueblawhich I co-directed with Oscar Formacio.