Patio
Una fuente (distintas disidencias)
by Jerónimo Reyes-Retana
Patio is a section dedicated to big format installations. Located in the central part of the house, this space is intended to display site-specific works. Each edition an artist is invited to develop a new proposal. This year Jerónimo Reyes-Retana presents Una fuente (distintas disidencias); an installation that suggests a dialogue between its form, its sound and the space it inhabits.
This large-format exercise responds to the complex layers of history that lie beneath a construction that, at the beginning of the 20th century, built part of the interests of the Porfiriato. In this scenario, the fountains located in the central courtyards were a status symbol, where control over a constant flow of water represented the colonial interests to externalize nature in order to dominate it.
Una fuente (distintas disidencias) is conceived as a different type of fountain. Through a 16-channel sound interface that hangs from the heights of the central patio, this installation reproduces an arrangement composed of a variety of sounds produced by the waters of the Colorado River. Through field recordings taken at different points along the water collection and consumption networks from this river (irrigation and drainage canals, intakes, sprinklers, pumping stations, automated irrigation systems, wells and pipes), the installation seeks to open a space for reflection on the environmental, geopolitical and historical implications of a body of water in crisis that exists as a link of (dis)connection between Mexico and the United States.
Jerónimo Reyes-Retana is an artist and researcher. Through mixed-media installations and speculative futurities, his practice seeks to open spaces to reflect on the tensions that arise from the techno-utopian determinisms that shape modernity/coloniality. His investigative interests unfold from contingent and relational research methodologies that examine sites conditioned to the cultural, environmental, and political anxieties of progress. Jerónimo’s work has been featured in solo exhibitions at Museo de la Ciudad (Ciudad Juárez, MX); Big Medium (Austin, US); CoLab Projects (Austin, US); Eda (Mexico City, MX) y Mario Kreuzberg (Basel, Switzerland), amongst other. Jerónimo’s work has been commissioned by the OMR gallery (Mexico City, MX). He has participated in the exhibition Otrxs Mundxs in Museo Tamayo (Mexico City, MX) and Ópticas Negativas at Distant Gallery (Amsterdam, Holanda). He is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Critical Media Practices at Colorado University (Boulder, US) and holds an MFA from The University of Texas (Austin, US). He participated in the educational programs Soma Summer (Mexico City, MX) and Materia Abierta (Mexico City, MX).
