iMuseo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo (MUAC)Ciudad Universitaria, Coyoacán
Minia Biabiany. Nuestras escuchas
"Our Listenings": Guadeloupean artist Minia Biabiany explores the colonial legacy of chlordecone poisoning and ways of listening to land and water.
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In one scene, people carry water in baskets, acting out the Creole saying chayé dlo an pannyé, used for something that does no good. In another they dig into the ground and bury clothes, a direct reference to the deaths caused by chlordecone, the pesticide used on banana plantations in Guadeloupe and Martinique from the 1970s to the 1990s although its toxicity was known.
Sala 3 holds four works by Minia Biabiany: a diagram of her working concepts chalked on the wall, the 36-minute video installation made with four people from the island (among them an eight-year-old girl and a phytochemistry researcher), six burned-wood sperm whales, and a seven-minute black-and-white film. You hear voices throughout, but no recognisable word or language: the voice works as an instrument, answering the water.
The two films run 43 minutes between them, so give it that if you want them whole. Tickets are MXN 60, half price on Sundays and free on Thursdays from 18:00 to 20:00.
Look for
Water carried in baskets
In the main video, people carry water in baskets, a staging of the Creole saying chayé dlo an pannyé for something that is no use.
The buried clothes
Look for the scenes where clothes are dug into the earth and buried, a direct reference to the deaths from chlordecone poisoning.
Six burned-wood sperm whales
Six charred wooden sculptures take the shape of sperm whales, a species that lives off Guadeloupe yet is missing from the island's stories and shared memory.
Relato corto con olas
A seven-minute black-and-white video in which human voices, with no recognisable words, answer the sound of the waves.
The chalk diagram
Biabiany's map of the concepts behind the project, drawn in chalk directly on the wall of Sala 3.
Good for
- Cheap Culture
- Evening Visits
- Going Solo
- Nerding Out
Skip if
You need words to follow a film: neither video has recognisable speech or language.
With kids
Under-12s get into MUAC free. The main video's subject includes deaths from pesticide poisoning.
Also at Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo (MUAC)
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Image credits
5
- Minia Biabiany. Nuestras escuchasCourtesy of Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo (MUAC)
- El Códice de AzcatitlanCourtesy of Museo Nacional de Antropología
- Entretejidas | Mextrópoli, 13o. Festival de Arquitectura y CiudadCourtesy of Antiguo Colegio de San Ildefonso
- El evento de un hilo. Narrativas globales en los textilesCourtesy of Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporáneo
- Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo (MUAC)Luisalvaz / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0