56th International Art Exhibition. All the world’s futures (2015)

Possessing Nature

In the 56th edition of the Venice Biennale, Possessing Nature was the installation that inaugurated the new official venue of the Mexican Pavilion at the Arsenale. The piece was the result of the collaboration between the artists Tania Candiani and Luis Felipe Ortega, and curated by Karla Jasso.

Created especially for the Biennale, Possessing Nature was a project that proposed a real and symbolic relation between the aspects of Venice and Mexico’s vital atmospheres, emphasizing a reflection of the aquatic remembrances of both amphibian cities: Mexico founded on a dried lake, and Venice which embraced the Adriatic Sea.

The concern of exposing a concrete question to la Biennale took Candiani, Ortega and Jasso to inquire on how to shape issues that characterize contemporary globalization, mainly the tension between collective memory and future expectations. This work, through the materialization of a hydraulic system as a monumental sculpture that evoked symbolic and figuratively the flowing drainage that baths and pours on a timeless cycle, is a symbol of the collective memory, cultural imaginary and resource of global technology.

Artist: Tania Candiani, Luis Felipe Ortega

Curatorship: Karla Jasso