Juan Villavicencio & Jerónimo Sainz

Servidor Local presents Jotas en ascenso, an exhibition selected from the Call for Call for Location Llano 2022 made up of works by Juan Villavicencio & Jerónimo Sainz.

Curated by Sociedad Tropical.

The exhibition project seeks to be a tribute to sexuality, identity, jotiza and going against the heteronorm.

Jotas en ascenso was born as an artistic and curatorial exercise that seeks to explore identity, queerness, queerness, and anything that is out of the norm. A project where Sociedad Tropical —made up of two bisexual women— opened a dialogue with Jerónimo and Juan —homosexual men— to inquire about the experiences of sexual awakening. These talks took them back to their roots, home and childhood where one forms their identity.

Through ceramic—sometimes smooth and other times scratchy—she becomes a representation of a tactile freedom that is molded and transformed into powerful metaphors of authenticity and visibility. Each of the works present simulate our own identities in constant deconstruction, creation, cooking and reinterpretation, where identity is built in a constant process of self-acceptance and growth, a journey full of unknowns.

Jotería is an act of resistance and of embracing our identities with pride. What do we feel when we do not belong to stereotypes and are the object of our own prejudices and those of others who try to silence our diversities? What do we face when we realize that there is a thorny path that we rarx must cross whether we are willing or not, if we want to live at will?

Servidor Local is a connection point, a forum where the dialogue takes place; it is, in essence, a refuge for ideas, diversity, and exchanges. As a platform, it promotes cultural, art and design projects that champion discourses with an impact on society seeking to benefit the immediate environment and can spread along the path of visitors.

As a physical space, it is the venue for exhibitions, installations, presentations and workshops that encourage contact between different languages and interests. Through its open call, Servidor Local remains receptive to proposals from those who seek to shape their ideas or are interested in exhibiting them. It has a bookstore, made up of books and book-objects from independent, self-managed and (self)sustainable publishers.

— Servidor Local