Application deadline: February 16, 2020
SOMA Summer is an eight-week program for international artists, curators, critics, and art historians in Mexico City. The program is built around a series of seminars and lectures led by renowned Mexican and international artists. Participants meet weekly for individual critiques with a variety of artists and curators, while engaging in public programs, site visits, and other activities in and around Mexico City.
Each SOMA Summer is organized around a specific conceptual framework and provides a compelling platform for artists and cultural agents who want to critically analyze their work while developing new ideas. The program will create a space of experimentation, exploration, and debate, to connect and confront theoretical and artistic traditions from the north and the south.
All program activities are in or translated to English.
SOMA Summer 2020 will revolve around the question, Can We Think Social Justice again? The concept of Social Justice was central for the 19th and 20th-century programs of political struggles that aimed at a better world for all. A project, in which the State was a mediator within economic forces, centered around equality between individuals, classes, genders, and races. Education, health and a fair distribution of the wealth have been some of the promises of the Welfare State. A promise that for some of us in the global south is a long-gone aspiration. Today, with the rise of fascist governments, the weakening of the State under aggressive neoliberalism, necropolitics, extractivism, exploitation, and a global ecological meltdown, the question remains on how to think about Social Justice?
Is Social Justice a political concept that can be reinvigorated for today or should we look to other political histories for inspiration? Can we organize under Social Justice towards new assemblages? Can the universality of the “for all” be re-shaped beyond the human? What is the role of the artistic practices in the Social Justice program? Or are artistic practices at the avant-garde of new practices of the political that move beyond the Social Justice project?
Through the axis of law, feminism, ecology, social moments, art and activism we will open different perspectives on the contemporary meanings, histories, and limits of the concept of Social Justice.
Lectures, seminars and workshops: María Luisa Aguilar (activist Centro Prodh/MX), Ursula Biemann (artist/CH), Dolores González Saravia (activist/MX), Marcelo Expósito (artist-activist/ES), Alexandra Hass (human rights lawyer/MX), Manuel Hernández (analyst/MX), Cuauhtémoc Medina (curator-art historian/MX), Prishani Naidoo (sociologist-activist/ZA), Federico Navarrete (historian/MX) and Rose Parfitt (lawyer/UK.).
Special and Public Sessions: Lawrence Abu Hamdan (artist/UK), Francis Alÿs and Julien Devaux (artists-film makers/MX-BE), Claire Fontaine (artists/FR), Colectivo Cherani (artist collective/MX), Casa Gallina (organization/MX), Simon Gush (artist/ZA), David Goldberg (philosopher/ZA-US), Anthony Graves (artist/US), La Liga Tensa (artist collective/MX), Tercerunquinto (artist collective/MX) and Lucia Sanromán (curator/MX).
Site visits: Museo Nacional de Antropología e Historia (Eduardo Abaroa, artist/MX), Biquini Wax EPS (artist collective/MX), Calpulli Tecalco (Fernando Palma/artist/MX), Cráter Invertido (artist cooperative/MX), La Casa del Ahuizote (Diego Flores Magón/MX), Murales de la Secretaria de Educación Pública (Luis Vargas/art historian/MX), Obrera Centro (Mauro Giaconi and Marcos Castro/artists AR-MX), Ruta de Antimonumentos (Cristina Hijar, activist/MX), Tlatelolco (Teatro Ojo, artist collective/MX) and most relevant museums and independent art spaces in Mexico City.
Mentors: Virginia Colwell (artist/US-MX), Fabiola Iza (curator/MX), Enrique Ježik (artist/MX-AR), Alejandra Labastida (curator/MX) and Lucía Sanromán (curator/MX).
Individual critiques: Eduardo Abaroa (artist/MX), Ricardo Alzati (artist/MX), Tania Candiani (artist/MX), Giacomo Castagnola (artist/PE), Marcos Castro (artist/MX), Tatiana Cuevas (curator/MX), Mariana David (curator/MX), Irving Domínguez (curator/MX), Diego Flores Magón (curator/MX), Julio García-Murillo (curator/MX), Magnolia de la Garza (curator/MX), Mauro Giaconi (artist/AR), Nate Harrison (artist-writer/US), Edgar Hernández (writer/MX), Catalina Lozano (curator/CO), Yoshua Okón (artist/MX), Josefa Ortega (curator/MX), Barbara Perea (curator/MX), Aldo Sánchez (curator/MX), Luis Vargas (art historian/MX) and Felipe Zúñiga (curator/MX).
Apply online.
More information about SOMA Summer
SOMA Summer 2020, Can We Think Social Justice Again? has the Academic Direction of Helena Chávez Mac Gregor. SOMA Summer program was designed and conceived by Carla Herrera-Prats (1973–2019). Program might be subject to change.
