The Grotto is an experimental opera based on a fantastic story written by artist Clotilde Jiménez that deals with migration, spirituality and autonomy. The story recounts real events that marked the childhood of the artist’s wife in the secluded town of La Garra, Guerrero, Mexico.

The exhibition explores the impact of colonialism on rural towns, questions its permanent effects and investigates ways to live in this regime without losing oneself. Trough magical and spiritual situations, Catholic beliefs come head-to-head with Nahua traditions that seek to contrast the customs imposed through the conquest to more recent forms of oppression, such as the border relations between Mexico and the United States. The artist proposes the concept of mesofuturism as a way of looking into the future and altering reality through the Mesoamerican cultural lens. Sound and movement become other ways of remembering and new ways of seeing.

The Grotto is Jiménez’s first opera and combines traditional aspects of theater with video and performance. The artist worked in collaboration with Javier Antonio Bellato as composer and sound designer to present three acts, as well as a dance of three: Spain, Mexico and the United States, through multiple perspectives that break with the traditional forms of opera.

Clotilde Jiménez (Honolulu, Hawaii, 1990). Lives and works in Mexico City. Through ceramics, sculpture, collage and painting, he achieves an overlap of materials that allows him to tell multiple stories at the same time. Through a kaleidoscopic lens into his thoughts, dreams and memories he composes multi-layered autobiographical portraits, using and reusing everyday materials. Jiménez has created a provocative and often contradictory visual language that explores the limits imposed by the body and mind in relation to race, gender, sexuality and spirituality.