2011: El año de la acción directa
Tras años de individualismo en el mundo del arte, del más refinado al más pop, y del largo reinado de la generación yo al amparo de Internet, vuelve el combate social. Creadores y activistas se enfrentan a políticos, banqueros y leyes. Sigue habiendo teoría, pero manda la práctica. La cultura pasa a la acción…
Laurie Jo Reynolds - Artist Shows Supermax Prisons Supercruel
Two years ago this November, President Obama appeared on “60 Minutes” and reiterated his promise to close the Guantanamo Bay detention center. This promise was seen by many as a first step to ending interrogation and torture methods employed by the United States government. But as of July 2010, detainees remain at Guantanamo and little has been done to change U.S. interrogation policy. With the growth of supermax prisons, rising incarceration rates, and the influence of prison guard unions in states like California, prison reform is an issue the U.S. has only begun to come to terms with, both economically and legislatively…
el instituto, currently headquartered in Mexico City, is a not-for-profit organization that generates exhibitions, conferences, workshops, courses and platforms for other events. el instituto is committed to the exploration of the overlap between art, culture, politics, activism and human rights theory and practice, both locally and internationally. Having no physical site of its own, el instituto functions symbiotically, hosted by cultural or academic institutions, while also operating in less official spaces and capacities…
Domènec - Superquadr casa-armário
Museu Nacional do Conjunto Cultural da Republica, Brasilia, Brazil. November 2007 Two prototypes measuring 220 x 80 x 65 cm each.
Wood, blankets and plastic objects A scaled down recreation of two buildings in the huge blocks of residential housing in Brasília, called “superquadras” or giant blocks of houses; designed by Lucio Costa. Made into prototypes of individual shelters for the “moradores da rua” or homeless. Project made for the exhibition Moradias Transitórias. Novos Espaços da Contemporanidade…
The Ghana ThinkTank
Developing the First World
Founded in 2006, the Ghana ThinkTank is a worldwide network of think tanks creating strategies to resolve local problems in the “developed” world. In our most recent project, we sent problems collected in Wales to think tanks in Ghana, Mexico, Serbia, Iran, and a group of incarcerated girls in the U.S. Prison system. The network began with think tanks from Ghana, Cuba and El Salvador, and has since expanded to include Serbia, Mexico and Ethiopia.
These think tanks analyze the problems and propose solutions, which we put into action back in the community where the problems originated – whether those solutions seem impractical or brilliant.
Some of these actions have produced workable solutions, but others have created intensely awkward situations, as we play out different cultures’ assumptions about each other.
It’s become a way to explore the friction caused by solutions that are generated in one context and applied elsewhere, while revealing the hidden assumptions that govern crosscultural interactions.
Mejor Vida Corp. is a non profit corporation. M.V.C. creates, promotes and distributes world wide products and services for free, M.V.C. doesn’t discriminates any person for its gender, race, religion, sexual preferences or economic status.
M.V.Corp. has issued thousands of student ID cards. This ID has been approved by Carmen Macazaga Valencia, the University Extension Coordinator, who was elected for this charge by looking for M.V.C. initials in the Mexico City’s White Pages. The MVC Student ID Card can be used internationally to obtain free or reduced museum admissions, public transportation, travel accommodation, other IDs, discounts on airfares, as well as many other benefits.
