ANIMIST MUSEUM OF LAKE TEXCOCO
The concept of animism originally named—and subjected—certain forms of knowledge and practice which would not fit the modern worldview: the living and the inanimate were thusly split apart into two separate realms, allowing order to come out of a seeming state of chaos. The Animist Museum of Lake Texcoco circulates among various disciplines and practices, seeking to actualize this otherwise pejorative word. Situated in the context of today’s Lake Texcoco, this project presents the desiccation of Mexico’s central basin as a complex phenomenon in which the living and the inanimate are confounded, and the past is constantly re-animated in the present.
COLLECTION
The exhibits composing this museum are alive, as they are primary witnesses of Lake Texcoco’s multiple transformations.
DEBRIS
The debris collection was brought together after a series of explorations on Lake Texcoco’s grounds. Multiple material traces were gathered in such surveys: these traces revealed how the relationship between humans and land has developed on the basin since 1971. An ensemble of exhibits has resulted, all catalogued by their place of origin and their function within the lake’s current context.
TERRAINS
These terrains are a way of charting certain geographical points within Lake Texcoco. Diverse samples of soils reveal the present morphology of the lake’s territory: earth, vegetation and debris are juxtaposed and intermingled. The samples have been captured on ground level, from a non-human point of view: the terrain is viewed through its details, without a horizon ahead, impeding the formation of a landscape.
ACTIVATIONS
ACTIVATION IN MUCA ROMA, MEXICO CITY
The second activation of the Animist Museum of Lake Texcoco (AMLT) at Muca Roma, Mexico City, has sought to shed light on certain problematics regarding this city and its surrounding areas. Understanding said problematics as a set of entanglements—of a historical, territorial, ecological, and political nature—, has called for various perspectives in order to be fully understood. This city’s unequal water distribution policies, its failed urbanization, the ecological affectations within its apparently isolated territories, the particular effects of earthquakes on its soil, as well as the collapse of its buildings have all somehow converged in Texcoco’s lakebed.
The AMLT gathered various voices in order to discuss the lacustrine memories of its rubble and soil, through a series of encounters, talks, workshops and other activities which were co-organized by [Islario] between August and December of 2018. Its space hosted discussions on certain socio-environmental implications pertaining the attempted construction of the New Mexico International Airport (NAIM) megaproject within Lake Texcoco’s federal lands, such as the dispossession of territories, the desiccation of water bodies, mining extractivism, among others.
ACTIVATION IN MORELIA, MEXICO
The Animist Museum of Lake Texcoco’s (AMLT) first activation took place in Morelia (state of Michoacan, Mexico), as a series of exchanges and encounters through and about the AMLT’s collection. A heterogeneous ensemble of people was brought together over the course of four intensive weeks (academics, activists, independent researchers, students, and visitors), to talk about museums, ecological issues, forms of territorial representation, and artistic research. Also, Lake Texcoco’s recent past detonated speculations on possible futures for Michoacan’s lacustrine cartography: its endangered water bodies, unequal water distribution policies, and forms of resistance were discussed.
The AMLT was activated at Clavijero Cultural Center (Morelia, Mexico) from March 22nd to April 22nd, 2018. This activation was co-produced by the Third Artistic Research Residency (Performance Studies and Live Arts Seminar / Art History Laboratory), the Laboratory of Publications, and the "Community Monitoring Project: a Strategy for the Unequal Distribution of Water Within Communities Which Face Poverty and Socio-Environmental Conflict” (National School of Higher Studies, Morelia, UNAM), with the support of MUCA Roma.
