Curatorial and Exhibition proposal
Mexican Pavilion at the 2023 Venice Architecture Biennale
Competition finalist
Team: Adriana David, Jose Antonio Sada, Eduardo Díaz, Xanic Galván, Delfin Montañana, Elsa Peña, Nuria Ortega Font, María Cristina Sánchez Mejorada.
Weaving Milpas is an installation that explores the potential of today’s millenary milpa system in Mexico, as an opportunity to rebuild the social fabric and for resilience to face climate change. The milpas in Mexico “weave” the territory and its spaces in a socio-environmental system of complex ecological, cultural and democratic relationships; They are an interconnected network of multi-species horizontal relationships, on which their very own existence depends, and in which each one has a specific role to preserve the life and balance of the entire system. These relationships articulate in spatial and socio-cultural terms, the territory and the cultural landscape and they have been facilitators of adaptation processes, since they are examples of strategies for food security, socio-environmental resilience and the communitary configuration of the habitat.
Currently, “making milpa” means preserving these cooperation links, promoting spaces of socio-environmental resistance, facilitating social cohesion and reinforcing identity. Making a milpa implies configuring the inhabited spaces such as the plot, the kitchen, the barn, the patio, etc. where actions marked by natural and cultural time indicators are carried out. Making milpa today in Mexico responds to the premise of the exhibition which consists of rediscovering and retaking complex collaborative relationships to reflect on the link between local traditions and innovation for a resilient future because recognizing the milpa as a system of spatial articulation is to question the political, socioeconomic and ecological configuration of our territory today. Telling the stories of the milpas that have shaped our territory over time, the stories of agricultural, ecological, economic, social, political, and cultural diversity, allows us to make visible those who have achieved food sustenance despite the capitalist and oppressive economy in which we live. These are stories that resist the anthropocene and that will help us to unveil different ways of decolonizing ourselves in the future.
Mexican Pavilion at the 2023 Venice Architecture Biennale
Competition finalist
Team: Adriana David, Jose Antonio Sada, Eduardo Díaz, Xanic Galván, Delfin Montañana, Elsa Peña, Nuria Ortega Font, María Cristina Sánchez Mejorada.
Weaving Milpas is an installation that explores the potential of today’s millenary milpa system in Mexico, as an opportunity to rebuild the social fabric and for resilience to face climate change. The milpas in Mexico “weave” the territory and its spaces in a socio-environmental system of complex ecological, cultural and democratic relationships; They are an interconnected network of multi-species horizontal relationships, on which their very own existence depends, and in which each one has a specific role to preserve the life and balance of the entire system. These relationships articulate in spatial and socio-cultural terms, the territory and the cultural landscape and they have been facilitators of adaptation processes, since they are examples of strategies for food security, socio-environmental resilience and the communitary configuration of the habitat.
Currently, “making milpa” means preserving these cooperation links, promoting spaces of socio-environmental resistance, facilitating social cohesion and reinforcing identity. Making a milpa implies configuring the inhabited spaces such as the plot, the kitchen, the barn, the patio, etc. where actions marked by natural and cultural time indicators are carried out. Making milpa today in Mexico responds to the premise of the exhibition which consists of rediscovering and retaking complex collaborative relationships to reflect on the link between local traditions and innovation for a resilient future because recognizing the milpa as a system of spatial articulation is to question the political, socioeconomic and ecological configuration of our territory today. Telling the stories of the milpas that have shaped our territory over time, the stories of agricultural, ecological, economic, social, political, and cultural diversity, allows us to make visible those who have achieved food sustenance despite the capitalist and oppressive economy in which we live. These are stories that resist the anthropocene and that will help us to unveil different ways of decolonizing ourselves in the future.