Artistic Research

En este texto daremos cuenta de un proyecto de investigación artística que se ha ocupado de la desecación de la cuenca central mexicana, sus posteriores transformaciones, procesos de urbanización, desarrollo y disputas por la tierra, a través de una museología experimental particular. El Museo Animista del Lago de Texcoco se ha formado desde 2015 como un ejercicio de re-construcción de la condición híbrida de este territorio en conflicto, concebido para albergar las contradicciones, fracturas y tensiones políticas de este contexto, disponiéndose también para pensar otros contextos con problemáticas afines. Aquí, nos
ocuparemos de las relaciones entre el lago de Texcoco y las reservas acuíferas del estado de Michoacán. Siendo un museo que migra, muta y se expande fuera de los espacios de exhibición, este museo ha acogido en él procesos pedagógicos, diálogos entre saberes diversos y formas de acción directa. Replanteando las relaciones entre autoría artística, piezas exhibidas, mediaciones y visitantes —desde una perspectiva que actualiza la noción de animismo para pensar qué existe y cómo existen las cosas que alberga su museología—, el Museo Animista del Lago de Texcoco ha permitido que las cosas y personas que lo construyen, habitan o transitan por él conversen, situando siempre sus conversaciones en relación a los lagos, la tierra y el agua que las convocan.

This text will examine a specific artistic research project: the Animist Museum of Lake Texcoco has accounted for the desiccation of Mexico’s central basin, its further transformations, urbanization processes, development enterprises, and disputes for land ownership, through an experimental museology of sorts. Said project has been formed since 2015 as a way of re-constructing the hybrid condition of this disputed territory, its contradictions, fractures, and political tensions, while opening a window at other contexts with akin situations: we will unravel Lake Texcoco’s particular relationship with the state of Michoacan’s water reservoirs. Standing on a migrant, mutant, and expansive type of museology which exceeds the boundaries of the exhibition space, this museum has hosted pedagogical processes, dialogues between diverse knowledge producers, as well as direct action. Rethinking the relationships between artistic authorship, exhibits, mediations, and visitors—from an animist perspective which considers what exists and how things may exist within its museology—, the Animist Museum of Lake Texcoco has enabled the people and objects who construct, inhabit or traverse it, to sustain conversations on lakes, land, and water.

Nowadays, intense influences between cultures are commonly associated with new technologies and
globalisation. However, when it comes to art, the new millennium is but the last step in a long process of
hundreds of years of artistic interaction and cultural exchange between artists from countries all over the world.
The relationship between Japan and Europe, strengthened after the Meiji Restoration, richly exemplifies how artists and their production benefit from outside influences, which ultimately permeates between different artistic and cultural manifestations such as cinema, photography, fashion, graphic design, comics or contemporary art.
This workshop aims to gather researchers and practitioners who wish to discuss the mutual influence between Japan and Europe on artists, their works and styles. The discussions are open to all periods and artistic media (including fine arts, cinema, photography, graphic design, manga, anime, fashion, etc.). We invite papers that consider individual artists, collectives, artistic movements or specific artworks.