SOMA Summer is an intensive three-week residency program in Mexico for artistic inquiry that welcomes a cohort of international artists, curators, critics, and art historians interested in collaborative pedagogical models. Each SOMA Summer is organized around a different theme that provides a compelling conceptual framework for research and creative work.
This year’s program will focus on a critical approach to the notion of Diversity and its implications, as we will question the historical and political appearances of the term within our current cultural system. We will debate how this concept manifests within the production realm of the arts, as well as explore how it has, at times, resulted in fundamental contradictions within our institutional structures, our bodies, and our minds alike. The program will take place in a former Hacienda in Tlaxco, in the state of Tlaxcala, Mexico. It will be led by a group of renowned Mexican and international artists and researchers, under the Academic Direction of Mexican artist Ricardo Alzati.
All program activities will be conducted in English.
A ghost and a Geist walk into a bar, (…nobody notices)
A promissory future is about to be delivered if we just click and agree a few more times to the terms and conditions. If only we just allow a few more cookies, war does not matter anymore. The past is a half-forgotten myth that brought us here. We are standing in what appears to be the solid promise of a polished present: IT, AI, QE, NFT, and many other Capital letters claim to turn our capabilities into almost superhuman disembodied abilities. And yet somehow, the paradox is ever more pressing: While it seems that every-body and every-thing, dissolves into a uniform and dull flux of infinite data which apparently works on our behalf at unimaginable speeds, we are all standing still, front row and center, at the edge of a cliff of some very real catastrophic outcomes.
The proposition is simple: during these three weeks, we are invited to take a leap and dive into an exploration of what Diversity might mean today. Let us think of these three weeks as the three-seconds that takes the Acapulco divers to hit the water, just an instant during which we might concede ourselves to take time at a different measure and with a different meaning. Let us take some time to see where it is that we are actually standing. Let us pursue an immersive and joyful quest inside a theoretically impractical Dive-bar, an awkward symposium, that will allow us to interrogate our own ghost-like selves and memories in the hopes of connecting with the Spirit of the times, over a drink or two.
Collaborators:
Eduardo Abaroa (artist, Mexico), Ricardo Alzati (artist, Mexico), Tania Candiani (artist, Mexico), Christian Camacho (artist, Mexico), Marielsa Castro (curator, Mexico), Virginia Colwell (artist, United States), Nina Höchtl (artist, Austria), Madeline Jiménez (artist, Dominican Republic), Magnolia de la Garza (curator, Mexico), Bárbara Perea (curator, Mexico), Naomi Rincón Gallardo (artist, Mexico), and more to be announced.
Apply online
Use the online platform to complete your application with the following:
–Short biography
–Curriculum vitae
–Artist’s statement
–Letter of interest
–Portfolio
–Contact information for three references
SOMA Summer invites participants who are eager to reflect on their practice, and who are not focused on preparing work for exhibitions or who have previous commitments with impending deadlines. More information about SOMA Summer 2023 here. Please contact ssummer [at] somamexico.org for further information regarding your application.
SOMA Summer is part of SOMA: an experimental pedagogical project, conceived as a platform for reconsideration and reflection where revisiting creative processes is encouraged. The program might be subject to change.
