Museos en común
Common Places

As part of the project Museos en común, a series of lectures, panels and workshops invite national and international voices to discuss the “common”, and their experiences in linking communities with cultural practices. The public program is based on four axes: What is common? Common Places, Common Actors and Common Learning and Knowledge.

In this second module, guests Andrea Torreblanca, Sofía Olascoaga, Marcelo López Dinardi, Cog•nate Collective and Melissa Aguilar speak to community processes in specific sites; the differences between public and common space; as well as the role of contemporary art collectives and institutions in the integration of neighboring communities with their public programming.

THURSDAY | 20.OCT.2022
6 PM | Conference
Andrea Torreblanca (Mexico), director of curatorial projects at INSITE and creator of COMMONPLACES

FRIDAY | 21.OCT.2022
12 PM | Panel
Participants:
Sofía Olascoaga (Mexico), educational curator and artist; Marcelo López Dinardi (Puerto Rico-USA), architect; Cog•nate Collective (Mexico-USA), art collective; Melissa Aguilar (Colombia), Curator at La Tertulia
Moderated by Sofía José Amorim, Education Coordinator, Museo Jumex

Andrea Torreblanca
Torreblanca studied an M.A. in Curatorial Practices at the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, in New York (2010). From 2016 to 2018 she served as General Director and Chief Curator of the Museo MMACJS, and as Cultural Programs Consultant at the BBVA Foundation (2016). From 2012 to 2015 she was Associate Curator at the Museo Tamayo in Mexico City and Coordinator of the Sala de Arte Público Siqueiros - La Tallera from 2010 to 2012. She served as Deputy Curatorial Director and Head of Registration of the Jacques and Natasha Gelman Collection of Modern and Contemporary Art (2004-2008); and was Coordinator of the Collection of the Museo de las Californias at CECUT, Tijuana, from 1998 to 2000. Torreblanca has taught art theory, criticism and history at several art schools and universities in Mexico. In 2018, she was appointed Director of Curatorial Projects at INSITE, where she founded and is Editor-in-Chief of INSITE Journal, and for which she recently conceived COMMONPLACES, a curatorial platform that takes place in different regions around the world, including Southern California and Baja California where she currently resides and through guest curators in Lima, with Miguel A. López and Johannesburg, with Gabi Ngcobo.

Sofía Olascoaga
Artist, curator and researcher, Olascoaga’s practice is situated in the intersections between art and education through the activation of spaces for critical thinking and collective action. Graduate of the Escuela Nacional de Pintura, Escultura y Grabado “La Esmeralda” and the Independent Studies Program at the Whitney Museum of American Art, she was a curatorial research fellow at Independent Curators International in New York (2011). She was part of the curatorial team of the 32nd São Paulo International Biennial (2016), served as academic curator at the Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo (2014-2015) and coordinator of Education and Public Programs at the Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil (2007-2010). Her research Entre utopía y desencanto addresses the productive tension between utopia and the failure of the models of intentional communities formed in Mexico in past decades, particularly the development of the Intercultural Documentation Center and the ideas of Ivan Illich. He is currently a member of the Sistema Nacional de Creadores (2019-2022).

Marcelo López Dinardi
López Dinardi Is an immigrant, architect and educator located in Texas. He is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Architecture at Texas A&M University. His work is characterized for acknowledging the relations of architecture within multiple scales, and more recently he investigates practices related to the common. He is the editor of the book Architecture from Public to Commons (Routledge, 2023) with a multidisciplinary group of contributors.

Cog•nate Collective
Collective founded in 2010 by Amy Sánchez Arteaga, professor of Latin American Art and Feminisms at San Diego State University, and Misael Díaz, professor of Art, Media and Design at California State University, San Marcos. This collective develops research projects, public interventions, and pedagogical programs in collaboration with communities in the U.S.-Mexico border region. Their work addresses issues related to migration, informal economies, and popular culture, advocating for an understanding of the border as a region articulated through the movement of people and objects.

Melissa Aguilar
She is a curator and researcher of Latin American and Colombian contemporary art of the 20th century, based in Cali. She studied Design at the Colegiatura Colombiana and has postgraduate studies in Cultural Management at the Fundación Ortega y Gasset (Buenos Aires), as well as a master’s degree in Art History from the Universidad de Antioquia. She is currently the curator of Museo La Tertulia. She recently participated as guest curator in the 46th. Salón Nacional de Artistas Inaudito Magdalena with the project Todo lo muerto, todo lo vivo. Umbrales de resistencia (Museo Nacional de Colombia, 2022). Between 2020 and 2021 she served as curator of the Museo Casa de la Memoria, in Medellin, and was part of the Imagen Regional 9 program of the Banco de la República.

Credits
Photo: Israel Esparza