Gemma Medina

METEN IS WETEN (MEASURING IS KNOWING) … LUNA BENGOECHEA AT DE FABRIEK*

All images by Gemma Medina, 2018.

Luna Bengoechea has modelled an artistic language that uses seeds, grains, and other botanical elements to express her ideas. She uses the aesthetic experience of her installations to interpret, translate, and draw us closer to the macrostructures of the food market that would remain otherwise hidden and which show the other side of the ethical and aesthetic systems that govern society in its current neoliberal framework. As consumers, this positions us as the last links in a chain of which we are a part, whether consciously or unconsciously. In either case, we seem to have a very little leeway. Or do we? We are like the pawns on a chessboard or like the seeds: the simplest elements are at the same time the origin of everything.

Riding on the train from Eindhoven to Rotterdam, one passes through an almost-continuous landscape of fields. Most of the crops grown here are not destined for human consumption. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), more than 70 percent of the cereals and grains harvested in ‘developed countries’ are produced to fatten farm animals. Jean Meyer, a nutritionist at Harvard University, says that reducing meat production by only 10 percent would yield enough grain to feed at least 60 million people. Based on this data, Bengoechea, during her residency at De Fabriek, has investigated the production of corn as fodder at the local, European, and global levels, developing a reflection that starts with Eindhoven’s agricultural context and which has evolved at De Fabriek, because its space is similar to those of large greenhouses and industrial agricultural farms. Infected by the experimental spirit of the space, the artist has expanded her methodology by introducing new materials, broadening references, and addressing for the first time from the botanical the problem of consumption and production of meat on a large scale.  

Text published as part of the residency and exhibition of Luna Bengoechea at De Fabriek, Eindhoven, 28 September 2018. Read the full text here

Escuela of Arte Útil expressing support to UNAM’ students. La Escuela de Arte Útil en apoyo a los estudiantes de la UNAM. Foto: Cortesía MUAC/UNAM.

La Escuela de Arte Útil  es un programa de cinco semanas desarrollado dentro del marco de la exposición “Tania Bruguera. Talking to Power / Hablándole al Poder”, que está orientado al estudio, análisis y práctica del Arte Útil, un movimiento artístico que tal y como enuncia su concepto, incluye la cualidad adjetiva de utilidad en el arte para centrarse en el carácter sustantivo del arte como herramienta.

Más allá de su carácter pedagógico, la Escuela se plantea como un dispositivo crítico que se infiltra en el museo para compartir y ampliar conocimientos en torno a estas prácticas y que aspira a convertirse en catalizador de procesos artísticos, sociales y políticos conectados con las urgencias y el contexto específico que la acoge. Usar la Escuela para generar un beneficio más allá del mundo artístico. 

Tania Bruguera, Núria Güell, Graciela Carnevale, Sofía Olascoaga y la que suscribe fueron las instructoras; a ello se sumaron los conversatorios con José Miguel González Casanova, Lucía Sanroman, Osvaldo Sánchez / Josefa Ortega Lorena Wolffer, Mónica Mayer, Paulina Cornejo, Primal, Carla Fernández, Murmurante teatro y Omar Bocanegra.

“Hablándole al Poder”. Curadores: Lucía Sanromán, Directora de Artes Visuales del YBCA y Susie Kantor, Curadora Asociada del YBCA. En 2018 viajó al Museo Universitario de Arte Contemporáneo, Ciudad de México. La Escuela de Arte Útil tuvo lugar en el MUAC en Agosto-Septiembre 2018.

Escuela visiting Primal studio, Mexico City // Visita de la Escuela de Arte Útil al estudio de Primal, Ciudad de México. https://primal.mx Foto.GM

Carla Fernández sharing insights about Taller Flora at the Escuela de Arte Útil // Carla Fernández comparte el proyecto Taller Flora y su desarrollo actual con los alumnos de la Escuela de Arte Útil, MUAC. Foto: GM

Facsimil Edition, 1934 // Edición facsímil del texto de Juan O’Gorman de 1934. Foto: GM

Visita al estudio Primal. Foto: Cortesía Primal.

Sesión extraordinaria de la Escuela ante la protesta estudiantil y cierre de más de 40 escuelas universitarias tras las graves agresiones cometidas por un grupo de choque (”porros”) para reprimir una manifestación de estudiantes dentro del recinto universitario el 3 de septiembre. La Escuela de Arte Útil se sumó a la protesta suspendiendo las clases. Foto: GM

Zone of Error by Etcétera, Artist in Residence Program “Artistic strategies in psychiatry”, Thanks to Elena Melkumova and Lydia van der Made. October-November 2017, GGzE & Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven.

Artist collective Etcétera from Argentina won the open call for the first artist residency on-site at the GGzE in 2017. During their two-month stay in Eindhoven, they researched on experimental strategies dealing with mental health care by working with the institution, its clients and staff. Together, and in collaboration with other local organisations as Boeiende Kunst and Fontys School Eindhoven, they initiated the Zone of Error (ZOE).

Zone of Error (ZOE) states common long-term strategies of collaboration between Van Abbemuseum, the GGzE and their respective communities. The collective Etcetera uses the “errorism” as “a practical philosophy that proposes to enjoy error to resist the homogenization of a successful society”.

Through Error, Love and Work as starting points, Etcétera approached the concept of mental health and stigma, and how neoliberal society defines and confines its character. They compiled clients and workers’ personal stories and living experiences with the history of Eindhoven, GGzE and the Van Abbemuseum linked to the final years of Dutch colonization of Indonesia with the Tabacco plantations of Sumatra and Java and the industrial development of Philips company in the city.