Estudios para ajolote by Melanie Smith

MAZ presents Estudios para ajolote (2025) by Melanie Smith, together with Kit Hammonds, Viviana Kuri Haddad, and the artist herself.

Estudios para ajolote is an interdisciplinary investigation that focuses on the gaze of the axolotl through scientific tools such as electron microscopes and optical visualizations, interwoven with a speculative and fantastical perspective. Starting from the question: How can we represent a being that lives between worlds—between water and land, science and myth?—the work invites the audience to imagine new ways of seeing, thinking, and narrating axolotls. At a time when this creature faces the paradox of extinction even as its image proliferates in the marketplace, this project offers an opportunity to reflect, through art and science, on what is at stake.

–MAZ