Translations

Dolores 54 presents the exhibition Translations curated by Stella Smith and Luke Buckley Harris.

Artists: Lucia Hinojosa, Sofia Ortiz, Maximiliano Rosiles, Daniel Dugan, Cressida, Virginia Colwell, Margot Kalach, David Troice, Adrian Bara, Azul Ehrenberg, Nikki Kaine.

In this show, we are inviting artists to engage in Boaventura de Sousa Santos’s call for ‘translations’, an encouragement for ‘a nonconformist attitude vis-à-vis the limits of one’s knowledge and practice’ and ‘the readiness to be surprised and to learn.’ We aim for these relational exchanges in the gallery space to cross geographical and cultural barriers, ‘build collaborative actions’, and support diverse subjectivities and worldviews. Here, this notion of supporting local and organic systems of knowledge, can be seen to contest Eurocentric systems of exclusion and totalising knowledge claims, realising Walter Mignolo’s project of ‘decoloniality’.

To carry out this collaborative knowledge sharing, we are asking artists for a brief response to geography and place in Mexico City. This work, which will be displayed alongside a chosen piece of each artist, can be grounded in any language (graphic, figurative, abstract), and expressed in a physical medium (paint, drawing, sculpture, text) that the artist sees fit. Seeking to break down the communicative barriers of group shows that rely on an arbitrary or generalising theme, we would like artists to include personal histories, archives and experiences of the city, movement into, out of, and within it, and hopes for its prospects. This will deepen contextual understanding of each artist’s practice, and provide liberatory exchanges and dialogues between artists and with the show’s audience. We are aiming to create an ecology of knowledge that draws on varied experiences and backgrounds to broaden our comprehension of local histories through interpersonal and transnational exchanges. As such, we endeavour to escape the demands of the global art market and the conformist pressure it places on artistic production. We appreciate this project remains a process, and works may provoke more questions than answers. We cannot expect all of the barriers of language, social positions of artists and audience, and divergent degrees of openness to different experiences to find resolution. Nevertheless, alongside the works chosen for the show, we hope that the artistic responses foster a space for contemplation, dialogue, and discussion, which can extend outwards to imagine more diverse and inclusive futures.

— Dolores 54

Picture: work by Margot Kalach