¿Quién habita el territorio?

Curated by CIMBRA and supported by Patronato de Arte Contemporáneo (PAC), ¿Quién habita el territorio? was a cycle of three collective exhibitions of visual, performing, and sound art in abandoned spaces in Oaxaca: a disused pool in the city center, an unfinished church in San Raymundo Jalpan, and a route through ruined colonial houses in the historic center.

The project transformed these places into exhibition spaces and produced an audiovisual record. It emerged from research into the social circumstances that lead to abandonment, in the context of urban transformation, gentrification, and tourism-driven change associated with an expanding cultural industry. It also asked about displacement and absence in the territory.

The cycle sought to learn and communicate the histories of these places by temporarily inhabiting them through site-specific audiovisual and sound works. It addressed absence, empty houses, and ruins, as well as imagination, metaphor, materiality, and the irreversible passage of time.