“You are at the center of my talk” : 
Institutional frameworks of support for contemporary art in Mexico


Panel presentations and Q&A sessions at Harvard Graduate School of Design




Today the landscape of contemporary art in Mexico is bigger and more connected to international institutions and markets than ever before. Yet artists, curators, and museum workers continue to find sufficient support to develop new work lacking. The result, it seems, is a vicious cycle: a tendency for the same figures to be repeatedly held up as representative of dominant narratives about cultural production in Mexico, solidifying an incomplete picture, and entrenching established power dynamics. 

What possibilities might challenge this status quo? What shifts in programming, funding, collaborations, or politics are needed to critically reexamine who is given the forum to speak, when, and why? 

Participants:
  • Yásnaya Elena Aguilar Gil – Linguist, writer, and activist for language rights
  • Christian Gómez Vega – Art historian and editor
  • Fabiola Iza – Independent curator, art historian and writer
  • Mauricio Marcín  –  Curator