Mapas entre la realidad y la fabulación

As part of José Luis Arroyo-Robles’s exhibition La materia de este mundo es bosque, the talk Mapas entre la realidad y la fabulación will take place, featuring the artist, Andrea Martínez and Deyani Alejandra Ávila Martínez.

The conversation proposes an expanded understanding of the map as a tool for representation, memory, and navigation, revisiting its uses across diverse cultures and Indigenous communities, as well as within processes of conquest and territorial domination. Drawing from different artistic practices, the discussion will explore cartographies that oscillate between documentation and speculation, incorporating personal experiences and collective imaginaries to question the apparent neutrality of mapping and propose alternative ways of reading and narrating space.

Andrea Martínez is a Mexican artist, photographer, and educator based in Mexico City. Her practice focuses on the foundations of photography, exploring light as both idea and material, while shifting the perception of the image toward zones of subtle dissonance. She has exhibited her work in Mexico and internationally, in venues such as the Houston Center for Photography and Museo Experimental El Eco; she has been a member of Mexico’s National System of Art Creators since 2021 and has received the FONCA grant twice.

Deyani Alejandra Ávila Martínez holds a degree in Geohistory from ENES Morelia–UNAM and a master’s degree in Social Anthropology from El Colegio de San Luis. Her work brings together critical geography, anthropology, and geospatial analysis. She currently works as an analyst at the Secretaría de las Mujeres, and her research addresses the relationships between territory, landscape, gender, and power, with an emphasis on rural and Indigenous contexts in Mexico.

—Lateral