Rodrigo Ímaz

Centro Cultural de España en México presents Las latas de Palestina, a solo exhibition by Rodrigo Ímaz.

The work of Rodrigo Ímaz stems from a practice attentive to the minimal: collecting, observing, and re-signifying that which often goes unnoticed. Like a "pepenador" —from the Nahuatl pepena, to choose, to separate— the artist constructs narratives from discarded objects, transforming waste into images that reveal stories, tensions, and structures of inequality.

In this exhibition, Ímaz turns his gaze to Jerusalem, a city traversed by layers of history, identity, and conflict, where conditions of occupation directly impact the daily lives of the Palestinian population. The artist approaches its margins: the remnants, the garbage, that which bears witness to realities that are frequently rendered invisible.

Crushed aluminum cans —collected in East Jerusalem— function as material traces of these conditions. More than useless objects, they become records of structural violence: in them are inscribed crushing gestures that refer to dynamics of control, neglect, and exclusion. Through these findings, Ímaz proposes a critical reading of the territory and the power relations that shape it.

In East Jerusalem, a Palestinian area under Israeli occupation since the Six-Day War, the precarity of basic services —such as waste collection— is part of daily life. In this context, garbage not only reveals material deficiencies but also the effects of policies that limit rights, access to services, and dignified living conditions.

Rodrigo Ímaz understands garbage as an archive, as material for social analysis, and as testimony. Thus, Las latas de Palestina presents itself as an X-ray of inequality and an invitation to look critically at that which often remains out of focus.

—CCEMx