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[crowds chanting]

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[strumming music]

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[crowds chanting]

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[distant sirens]

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[Minerva Cuevas] I feel my work is very [br]rooted to Mexico,

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to my background,

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the sense of community and social justice.

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We are in a general crisis.

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The disappearance of the 43 students [br]of the Ayotzinapa school is, I think,

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one of the most well-known situations and [br]political crises in Mexico at the moment.

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I started working with [br]"Disidencia" project in 2007.

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I was going to film, and very [br]much trace a cartography of

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resistance and dissidence in Mexico City.

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Mexico City, for me, it's so rich.

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[violin music]

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I think the city's inspiring [br]because it's full of improvisation.

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Mexico City, it's very mixed in terms of class, of race.

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It's very much built by the indigenous,

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the people that came from all [br]the other states in Mexico.

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♪ ♪

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And I think the other element [br]that is present together

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with this rural element is the sense of community.

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♪ ♪

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I was born

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in Mexico City, here, but [br]my family comes from Oaxaca.

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So if I have to say that my roots are somewhere [br]in the country, it would be the south.

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I studied visual arts, but I quit school.

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It was around the early Nineties.

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And the art scene became quite interesting[br]because anything was possible.

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It was not evident at the [br]beginning of my production

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that it was going to take a political direction,

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but suddenly, it just became obvious.

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— From here, we can see the Latin-American Tower.

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That's where I used to have the [br]office space on the 14th floor.

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It used to be in every postcard of Mexico City.

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Now that's changing, but, yeah,

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it's still a very symbolic building.

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[Minerva Cuevas] The Better Life Corporation started around '98.

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It's probably my most important work.

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[typewriter clicking]

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At the beginning, it was not [br]planned as an art project.

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Just these symbolic actions, [br]some giving away little gifts.

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It could be a subway ticket.

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It could be a barcode sticker for the supermarket,[br]student I.D. card.

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It created this sense of freedom [br]that actions are possible.

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So I think you empower people...

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This little disturbance in the system, no?

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It's finding the gap in the bureaucratic process.

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With the barcodes intervention, [br]I could alter just the lines,

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and people were buying cheaper food--of course,

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it's micro sabotage--

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and then little by little, it [br]became an art project, as well.

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It gets exhibited in cultural spaces,

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and that's very important because it became [br]the second stage of this street intervention.

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In any conceptual art, the main [br]thing is to generate the idea,

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and in my case, it's the social idea.

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[flute music]

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— You should mark them with a pencil.

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Like this one that's rounded, or this right now.

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— Ok.

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— No mas.

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[Minerva Cuevas] In this visual society, it seems [br]that we are at the same time blinded.

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All the things that we face every day [br]that are signs of the social crisis,

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sometimes they get transparent and [br]forgotten, so some of my projects,

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the exercise is very much reworking the [br]visual code to make things visible again.

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One of the first ones was [br]the "Del Montte" campaign.

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I decided to alter the brand and generate [br]a campaign about the actual situation of

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how the company is influencing politics or [br]land struggles in countries like Guatemala.

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— Careful with the paintbrush up on the ladder.

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[chuckles]

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In my case, as everything is [br]generated as conceptual art,

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it's secondary if it's made by [br]me or if it's painted by me,

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but usually, I let those things [br]to the professional sign painters.

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For me, it's a strategy that connects to [br]billboards or other kind of advertising

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the branding of companies.

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You are already familiar with the image,

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and then you get this other connotation [br]connected to that image,

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so it's playful.

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[traffic sounds]

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— Si.

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I got interested in primitive currency.

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And cacao was used as currency [br]in pre-Hispanic times in Mexico.

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— The most political cacao is

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the Soconusco cacao, the one we used to produce 500 ears for the show.

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— It was the first chocolate to cross the [br]Atlantic in human history.

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And the Catholic monarchs tried it for the first time

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— 1521, no?

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— Exactly.

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[Minerva Cuevas] For me, the exhibition "Feast and Famine" was [br]very much a reference to the capitalist system,

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considering the whole capitalist [br]system as a cannibalist process

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— It looks like blood, no?

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— Si.

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because I think that puts together two [br]of the characteristics of capitalism--

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the exploitation of all the [br]resources in the planet--

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so it's all this feast; but at the end,

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we are reaching the point of societies [br]that are dying of starvation.

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For me, the most important [br]art work in the whole show,

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it's the chocolate dripping [br]from the ceiling of the gallery.

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[Dripping]

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Every time the

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chocolate drips, one person dies of starvation [br]in the world,

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and that's every 3.6 seconds.

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It's a terrible fact, but somehow it's [br]translated into this chocolate sculpture.

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[Dripping continues]

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[Dripping continues]

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Since pre-Hispanic times,

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the neighborhood of [br]Tepito was a place for a market,

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and that's why they are somehow occupying [br]the streets to have their businesses.

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I like when there are these spaces of [br]freedom on the streets in Mexico City.

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The area itself has been very [br]united and almost autonomous.

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It's an alternative way of commerce and a [br]very interesting way to resist and survive.

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[bell ringing]

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The slogan part of the poster, "Against the [br]Forbidden: The Streets of the Possible,"

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refers to the neighborhood Tepito and the bigger [br]movement that really wants to take the streets as

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a public place to demonstrate [br]or to act politically.

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And some part of that kind of street culture [br]or community life is getting forgotten.

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[violin music]

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Art is totally connected to social change.

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♪ ♪

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We don't have a way to measure [br]how art can impact society,

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and that's good because that's [br]part of the freedom to do.

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[soft electronic music]