WEBVTT

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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 
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 
of the Ayotzinapa school is, I think,

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

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I started working with 
"Disidencia" project in 2007.

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I was going to film, and very 
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 
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 
the other states in Mexico.

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♪ ♪

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And I think the other element 
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 
my family comes from Oaxaca.

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So if I have to say that my roots are somewhere 
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
because anything was possible.

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It was not evident at the 
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 
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 
planned as an art project.

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Just these symbolic actions, 
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,
student I.D. card.

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It created this sense of freedom 
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, 
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 
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 
the second stage of this street intervention.

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In any conceptual art, the main 
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 
that we are at the same time blinded.

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

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

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

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One of the first ones was 
the "Del Montte" campaign.

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

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how the company is influencing politics or 
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 
generated as conceptual art,

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it's secondary if it's made by 
me or if it's painted by me,

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

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For me, it's a strategy that connects to 
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 
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 
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 
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 
very much a reference to the capitalist system,

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considering the whole capitalist 
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 
of the characteristics of capitalism--

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the exploitation of all the 
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 
that are dying of starvation.

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For me, the most important 
art work in the whole show,

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it's the chocolate dripping 
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 
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 
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 
Tepito was a place for a market,

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

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

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The area itself has been very 
united and almost autonomous.

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It's an alternative way of commerce and a 
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 
Forbidden: The Streets of the Possible,"

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

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a public place to demonstrate 
or to act politically.

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And some part of that kind of street culture 
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 
how art can impact society,

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

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[soft electronic music]