After a two-year pause, Fundación Marso resumes its exhibition program, artistic residencies and research. Our programming will respond to three lines of inquiry- action: indigenous heritage, gender equity and environmental awareness, with a special focus on northern Mexico.
On this occasion we invited Sonoran artist Miguel Fernández de Castro to share his research and work in the Altar Desert, Sonora, his hometown. This border town is one of the main crossing points for undocumented migrants from Mexico to the United States.
With the objective of making visible the social phenomena that occur on this border, Miguel established an exchange with a sewing workshop in Altar, which specializes in making camouflage clothing for migrants. The workshop produces shoes with soles made of carpet that are worn so as not to leave tracks when crossing the desert.During the time of the exhibition, the main hall of Fundación Marso will function as an alternate location of the sewing workshop and will produce the same number of shoes as the original location. In this way, the development of the exhibition will reflect migration flows in Altar.
La sombra de la tierra exposes the ethical and political ambiguities that this commodity embodies. The exhibition also presents a visual exploration in video and photography which situates the invisible trace of the carpet-shoe within a broader ecology of traces and concealments.
With this project, Fernández de Castro delves into a new facet of his research on the material manifestations of violence, moving between fields as diverse as geology, forensic research and design. His investigation of the contemporary context also draws on archives and publications from the 19th century. For this exhibition, illustrations from William H. Emory’s Report of the United States and Mexican Boundary Survey (1857) are placed in dialogue with the geography of contemporary migration.
Miguel will donate to Fundación Marso a percentage of the proceeds from the sale of artwork from this exhibition, which will contribute to the construction of several cultural-community centers in the Sierra Tarahumara (in the Raramuri communities).
