22.07 STRATUM : a geo-aesthetic intervention

MUSEO UNIVERSITARIO DE CIENCIAS Y ARTES ( MUCA-UNAM ) - MEXICO-CITY

Site-specific Installation

Stratum is a geo-aesthetic intervention by artist Luis Carrera-Maul that constructs a monumental landscape with ceramic waste and unicel planting trays. These two components allude to the alteration of soils by industrial production. While ceramic is an anorganic material extracted from the earth, unicel is a synthetic and toxic substance that takes centuries to decompose. Two temporalities collide in the installation, the brief cycles of extraction-production-disposal of ceramics versus the persistence of unicel. However, both materials constitute the substrate from which plants grow, freely and wildly. Thus is born, in this metamorphic installation, an autopoiesis of the vegetable that questions -and intervenes- the artificial production of the human being. In this way, the artist configures an unexpected plasticity of industrial materials, which encourages reflection on their cycles -economic, political, cultural and ecological-, their sedimentation as a geological process and their metamorphosis towards unpredictable and surprising aesthetic-ecological agglomerates. A landscape emerges that is both contemplative and provocative at the same time, which reflects the impact of human beings in Anthropocene times.
This artistic intervention articulates and tensions key issues and problems of ecology: the unsustainable management of soils, the processes of sedimentation by garbage, plant propagation under adverse conditions, among others. STRATUM is a geo-aesthetic exhibition that offers alternative views on the irresponsible management of planet Earth; it also invites to an interdisciplinary dialogue between sciences, humanities and current environmental policies.
The artist turns detritus into a matter for reflection. And he transforms the museum into an experimental and processual space, where complex debates converge between the multiple areas of knowledge that inhabit the maximum house of studies, the UNAM, and the visitors.
Because of its vocation to promote cultural contact between the visual arts, the humanities and the sciences, the MUCA is the ideal museum for STRATUM's geo-aesthetic intervention. Its spacious gallery, with its shed-like roof, resembles an industrial warehouse, a space suitable for the production of an experimental mega-installation. STRATUM is a contemporary artwork that catalyzes environmental debates and stimulates transdisciplinary reflection on the critical condition of our planet. With this exhibition, MUCA fulfills its mandate to become a "dynamic museum", "a promoter of management, linkage and collaboration among university institutions and departments to make use of the University's greatest resource: its human, scientific, technical and cultural capital". STRATUM offers a platform for dialogue not only within the university community, but also among the public.

Peter Krieger

Curated by : Peter Krieger

Collaborators :

Andrea Paasch, communication and dissemination
Montserrat Ayala, assistant director and social networks
Ingrid Kaiser, public and press relations
Guilen Errecalde, audiovisual registration
Andrés Kilmek, audiovisual registration
Cesar Orozco, video editing
Adriana Juárez, identity and graphic design
Miguel Cinta, production and editing assistant
Luis Humberto Carrera Salcedo, irrigation system advisor
Pedro Ortíz Luna, irrigation system assembly

Supported by : ANFORA through the EFIARTES Program