"ON HUMAN DISPLACEMTENT": TERESA MARGOLLES CONFERENCE AT MoMA

On Friday the 14th at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, the Mexican artist Teresa Margolles (1963) will give a lecture on the crossroads between armed border conflicts and artistic and cultural production in Latin America. The activity, under the title On human displacement, is possible thanks to the Patricia Phelps of Cisneros Research Institute.

Trabajadora sexual transgénero de pie sobre la pista de baile de un club demolido en Ciudad Juárez, México C print en papel de algodón. Ph: Teresa Margolles.

Licensed in Forensic Medicine, Margolles developed a large part of her conceptual and audiovisual artwork around the more than two decades she lived and researched border cities stalked by armed conflicts. During On human displacement, the concepts will be based on the experiences of Margolles in Ciudad Juarez, a Mexican region bordering the United States, and Cúcuta, a Colombian city located on the border with Venezuela.

In the case of Ciudad Juarez, Teresa Margolles arrived there in the year 2000 to conduct research related to social and gender violence. Sadly, known for its extremely high homicide rate, the Mexican city is a nucleus of tension in one of the most hostile borders on the planet. On the other hand, the artist traveled for the first time in 2017 to Cúcuta, city that has been witnessing for more than two years the Venezuelan exodus. The field research carried out in the Simón Bolivar International Bridge that links Colombia and Venezuela over the Tachita River was a trigger for its recent development of works related to sacrifice, migration and gender.

In this sense, Margolles will put the focus of the conference on this two urban centers understood as spaces of displacement and social emergency. The conversation will take place this Friday at 6:00 pm in New York, at the MoMA.