In Xóchitl, in Cuícatl (El Domo de los Concheros).

Por Édgar Sánchez

Descargar Versión Periódico Plaza de Armas
Colaboracion Edgar Sanchez Incusa el agua es una (1)

Confieso que yo mismo viví treinta años en la ignorancia. Crecí bajo la apuesta oficial de que una identidad homogénea sería el camino para el “progreso” de México. Tal vez fue que me llamaran “güero” en el mercado y en las escuelas rurales donde estudié parte de la primaria, o pudo ser la presión social de mis compañeros en las escuelas privadas de mi pubertad: el punto es que crecí en la ignorancia y negación de mi sangre indígena.

Aún así, sentía que algo no cuadraba y esto me provocaba un impulso irresistible por entender la debacle de las culturas originarias ante la colonización europea. Enfrenté este misterio al tomar la prueba de ADN del proyecto genográfico de National Geographic. “Saliste indio de un lado y también indio del otro”, me dijo con afecto Francisco Plata, mi primer maestro conchero, cuando le compartí los resultados. Y dancé con ellos en busca de mi identidad perdida, porque era vital averiguar si ser “indio” tenía relevancia en el mundo contemporáneo.

Años después conocí a don Manuel Rodríguez González, capitán general de una de las 22 mesas de danza asentadas en el barrio de San Francisquito. Era una noche de septiembre, frente al altar de su cuartel general, en las faldas del cerro de Sangremal, en Querétaro. Se le veía imponente, recibiendo con bendiciones a capitanes y guerreros que venían de lejos a unirse a la celebración anual que comenzaría la mañana siguiente frente al templo de La Cruz. El aroma del copal flotaba denso entre plumas y atuendos, creando una atmósfera vibrante, de dichoso entusiasmo. Los presentes llenaban el recinto a ambos lados del pasillo central y miraban con respeto a cada recién llegado. Al entrar se adivinaba la presencia de las ánimas de los ancestros y el entusiasmo por el comienzo de la batalla.

Los concheros llaman “capitán general” al líder de “capitanes”, quienes comandan grupos de “guerreras y guerreros”. Sus instrumentos musicales son “las armas” y sus atuendos, los “uniformes”. En el cuartel general, las sahumadoras y los sargentos organizan las operaciones que constituyen la supervivencia de las “guerras floridas”, ritual mesoamericano de reverencia al misterioso balance entre la vida y la muerte. Danzan la guerra frente a las iglesias, con la intención de sostener la armonía y el balance. De sus ancestros recibieron la misión de honrar la tradición chichimeca de los cuatro rumbos, y también honrar a la religión que llegó de Europa. Este compromiso con el balance está detrás del amor que expresan a la virgen de Guadalupe cómo imagen de la madre Tierra, al Dios encarnado que se sacrifica por la redención humana y al creador-creadora del cosmos a quién aún llaman: “Ometéotl”.

Pocos conocen estos misterios concheros. La ignorancia que yo viví parece estar presente también en algunos círculos intelectuales. Guiada por un silencioso sesgo hacia lo “criollo”, la atención suele posarse sobre los danzantes con una pizca de desdén. Se les caracteriza de un “sincretismo” que pretende conciliar doctrinas sin lograr coherencia. Se les descarta como una vulgarización folclórica de prácticas que quedaron atrapadas en la falta de conocimiento. Se pondera por debajo de la imitación de formas europeas. Se les usa para fines políticos y se les considera un espectáculo turístico, negándoles la dignidad del ritual sagrado. Aún hoy, las identidades mexicanas parecen seguir bloqueadas por el espectro de la vergüenza.

La causa de este bloqueo parece obvia: la conquista cultural fue brutal y dejó el recuerdo de los ancestros bajo las pezuñas del corcel blanco de Santiago, el patrono de la reconquista de Iberia y de la conquista de América. Parece desafortunado asociarse con lo nativo, cuando se cree que no han quedado más que ruinas y folklor detrás de esa identidad. Miramos el frontispicio del templo de San Francisco en el jardín Zenea y encontramos la imagen de Santiago mata-moros, degollando infieles y a su corcel blanco pisoteando cuerpos morenos. Y si bien honramos la sangre de los guerreros que quemaron sus barcos para tomar su lugar en nuestro linaje, es necesario reconciliarnos con el cuerpo del México indígena. Este es el alimento que ansía la genialidad creativa de nuestra “raza cósmica”, frente al mundo post-contemporáneo.

Es 2018 y estoy de regreso en el cuartel general. Hoy no hay festividad; el general nos recibe para una entrevista. Los “nueves”, guerreros creativos de Incusa, preparan la versión del “manifiesto transgrafitero” para la curaduría de los murales del domo del Centro Cultural Gómez Morín, proyecto que consagra ocho años de activismo cultural de Nueve Arte Urbano, con el festival: el agua es una. Don Manuel nos relata cómo recibió de sus ancestros la “obligación” de sostener las tradiciones de la “danza Chichimeca de arco y flecha”, y de cuidar del “madero sagrado” de la mesa “in xochitl in cuicatl”, en un linaje ininterrumpido desde 1733. Su familia está atenta mientras danza, canta y toca la concha de armadillo frente a las cámaras. Estamos frente a uno de los linajes de mayor abolengo en Querétaro: los chichimecas que cambiaron el arco y la flecha por “la flor y el canto”, para sostener la paz y el balance, sin abandonar la batalla.

El discurso de los murales del domo se sostiene sobre los hombros de los creadores del pasado. Este retablo de murales transgrafiteros, bendecido por el General y su familia, es una ofrenda del pueblo para el pueblo. Nos habla del misterio de la creación según la cosmovisión mesoamericana. Los cuatro Tezcatlipocas sostienen la bóveda celeste sobre la tierra, abriendo el espacio donde habita la humanidad. Tláloc-Cosijo observa el cielo del norte con el ojo de la conciencia. Su consorte Chalchiutlicue bendice el sur con fecundidad, sobre un espejo de agua. En el este, el sol nace para iluminar el esplendor de los ecosistemas y un híbrido mestizo de San Francisco y Quetzalcóatl. Al oeste, donde los días mueren, los grafiteros queretanos plasmaron a Cipactli, el cocodrilo de ojos rojos que sufre con la contaminación. En total, 33 murales y más de tres mil metros cuadrados, donados por escritores de grafiti, artistas y productores, de Querétaro, México y el mundo, con el sueño de crear conciencia sobre nuestras raíces culturales y los retos del agua y la supervivencia urbana.

El domo, pieza de piezas, narra en el metalenguaje de los retablos, una versión contemporánea y popular de los mitos que dieron sentido a la vida de nuestros ancestros. Esconde en su cima un disco solar, mientras cuelga dentro del domo el péndulo de la danza del cielo con la tierra. Así nos recuerda que vivimos: “en el ombligo de la luna, centro de la tierra, donde ofrendamos los corazones al sol”.

El general danzó frente al domo como lo ha hecho por ochenta años. Sosteniendo en el corazón un amor profundo por la tradición Chichimeca, y balanceando con el mismo amor su respeto por la religión europea. Este es para mí el mejor ejemplo de libertad cultural, que definimos como la capacidad de ver nuestras creencias, sin dejar de reconocer verdad en otras alternativas, y así elegir libremente nuestra identidad individual. Hoy es un buen día para convocar a nuestra ciudad a sacudirse los bloqueos y redescubrir este tesoro olvidado, de raíces identitarias, heroísmo y libertad cultural. Doy gracias a los concheros por su sabio ejemplo y por los siglos de paz, balance y guerra florida.

#WorldCleanupDay

With the intention of continuing to create projects where art, community, ecology and economy are extremely intricate, Nueve Arte Urbano joins the WORLD CLEAN UP DAY campaign.
We trust the community of 263,000 people who support us for:

1) Identify high-risk areas or illegal landfills.
2) Map them and make them visible in the city, as part of a problem that concerns us all.
3) Normalize actions that in the day to day take us to a sustainable environment.

We have already started, and we want to share it with you.

Don’t forget to download the App World CleanUp and help us to register the concentration of garbage in your area.

 

Paola and her passion.

Por Chema Noriega. Fotos Yoshi Travel, Eddgar Arcane  y Gabriel McCormick


Humans are a conglomerate of realities, a product of the discourses to which we are exposed on a daily basis. In the construction of our identity, we choose to personify those values and ideas that best match our subjectivity, even if this means opposing a centuries-old cultural system and risking our lives in the process. This is the reality of women in our time, a struggle to end the avalanche of tacit and structural violence which, despite the proliferation of actions and discourses in favour of gender equality, seems to be increasing in direct proportion to the number of voices against them. In this sense, art is seen as an ideal means of denouncing the patriarchal patterns that, impregnated in our culture, degrade, minimize and destroy the integrity of millions of people who, simply because they are women, suffer the vicissitudes of an absurd hegemony.

Paola en el Domo Foto Eddgar Torres.

Art and urban art, in particular, not only denounce situations, but also offer alternatives, courses of action that make it possible to eradicate a problem or gradually transform a belief system, an idea or a simple behaviour. To this end, art should not be limited to a specific sector of the population. Paola Delfín, originally from Mexico City, is a contemporary artist whose work explores the beauty and sensibility that surround the female figure. Highly influenced by the techniques of illustration, Paola manages to incorporate elements of femininity, creating dynamic contrasts that try to give her work its own life. Her philosophy is that art must be accessible everywhere, “my passion is to create, to be able to tell a story with my hands through images that involve the spectator in the story”, says Paola herself for her biography on the Widewalls platform, emphasizing the importance of artistic manifestations jumping from the galleries to the streets in an attempt to make the medium more accessible.

Paola Delfin’s approach to art came at a very early age. As a child she always saw in her pencil and paper the possibility of visualizing her reality through drawing. In her mission to take her art to all possible places, Paola has experimented with different techniques and formats to catalyze her ideas and emotions, finding in muralism the ideal means to convey her message to society, away from the exclusivity that usually involves the artistic medium, to promote a true interaction between the audience and the artistic work, which invites reflection and encourages action.

Paola Foto Gabriel McCormick

Paola has managed to take her work to streets and galleries all over the world, countries such as Germany, Argentina, Colombia and Spain, have witnessed how the fluidity of her strokes manages to appropriate large walls to make visible the strength of her work.

Paola pintando Foto de Yoshi travel

Paola Delfin is currently painting on the dome of Focault’s pendulum for SeaWalls: Water is One, a new edition of the Pangeaseed Foundation’s SeaWalls: Artists for Oceans program, produced by Nueve Arte Urbano.

You can learn more about Paola’s work at:

https://www.instagram.com/paola_delfin/?hl=es-la

https://www.facebook.com/paoladelfinmx/

In Queretaro The Water Is Onse

By Ricardo Quezda.
Photos Gabriel McCormick, Eddgar Torres and Yoshi Travel.

Intercultural Festival of Urban Art begins in the city of Queretaro from March 27 to April 15.

If, at this early age of the 21st century, we could speak of a predominant artistic trend in the world, that would be urban art. The movement of monumental plastic art, which takes its influences from muralism, graffiti, public interventions and even from the most astute advertising activations, has made its growth the culmination of a social idea that emanated from the deepest values of humanity when the French Revolution was proclaimed in 1776, making art a universal right to which all people must have access, the brightest edge in the arsenal of democratization and cultural proliferation.

Domo desde abajo Foto Mc/Eddgar

Today, this movement, which although it has its speakers and its detractors, has evolved and found a social niche through its synthesis as a tool that gives voice to the ignored, strongly raises the messages of those concerned and finds its catharsis in the street, where passers-by can be impacted, motivated and in the most benign of inspired and prosecuted cases. Thanks to this last quality, urban art has found a new paradigm, the artivism that summons artists from all over the world to take the walls and walls that make up the panorama of a city to delve into the depths of its social scars and unveil one of the challenges facing its citizens, generating concise messages that allow them to take assertive action before it is too late and from a challenge to a real difficulty for that society to find progress and ensure its survival.

This scheme, of finding the elephants in the room, has given urban art a differentiating capacity among the current trends that predominate in museums because, contrary to contemporary art and its complex and literary statutes, urban art is born of the ramplonería, of the simple, honest and raw of the streets, of the aerosol cans spitting paint on the brushes passed by water and thinner, of the truck singing the song “Panadero con el pan” to the traditional carnivals.

Pogo Por yoshi travel

Thanks to this, artivism as a branch of urban art is able to connect with people, improving the neighborhood relationship, making visible the forgotten roots of an oppressed nation or contributing enormously to the preservation of marine life, as Nine Urban Art has done in Querétaro and Estonia through transgrafiti, or Pangea Seed through her artivism in coastal cities around the world. As in its time with muralism, Mexico is positioned as one of the leading exponents of urban art, thanks to various public and private initiatives but above all to the enormous desires and desires of artists, graffiti artists, illustrators, designers and enthusiasts who make up the national scene of urban art. From all of them and for several years Nueve Arte Urbano, whose headquarters are in the city of Querétaro, has managed to establish a viable model for the positive appropriation of urban spaces with collective causes.

 

Ryper Foto Yoshi Travel

After a complex mission to Estonia in 2017, with the transgraphiti festival “Mextonia”, Nueve has returned to the city where it was born and together with Pangea Seed Foundation, one of the main promoters of artivism worldwide, are developing the “Festival Water is One” at the Centro Cultural Manuel Gómez Morín CECEQ in the city of Querétaro, with the specific aim of generating murals that evoke the problems of water today and allow citizens all over the world to take initiative and begin to positively impact their environment.

Conferencia de Prensa El Agua Es Una Foto Archivo Nueve

With the participation of more than 16 national and international artists, the festival intertwines the qualities of transgraphiti and artivism, developing a series of pictorial proposals that make up a meta work of art inside the cylindrical building whose dome holds a Foucault pendulum and which houses the Science and Technology Museum “The Pendulum”. Like the waves that form when a drop breaks the surface of a body of water, the festival seeks to make CECEQ the epicenter of a conscious revolution in the care and management of water resources, in other words, that we citizens waste and pollute less water in our daily activities. With the intention of generating a message that spreads, the festival will concentrate its work on the CECEQ, creating an eye for the hurricane, where they will be painting Aaron Glasson, Curiot Tlapazotl, Demencia, Goal, Jason Botkin, Mantra, Nosego, Paola Delfín, Pogo, Renata, Ryper, Sermob, Smithe y Sänk, with the industrial painters Jorge and Fernando Lucio, from where the series of affluent murals headed by Saul Torbe, Miguel Valiñas, la Xfamilia, Roco Oñate, Lelo y Root Rises.

Equipo de producción en andamio 4 foto Yoshi Travel

La Universidad Autónoma de Querétaro e Incusa/Nueve Arte Urbano together for the water.

Staff Nueve Arte Urbano.

With the Festival El Agua Es Una just a few days before the start of its activities, Dr. Tere García Besné, Dr. Alejandro Váquez and Dr. Raul Pineda from the Autonomous University of Querétaro together with Mr. José Luis Pineda, the Director of the University of Querétaro, and Mr. José Luis de la Vega, the Director of the Festival, will be in charge of the event. Edgar Sánchez, Director of Incusa/Nine Urban Art, addressed the problems of water resources in the State and the city at a press conference and launched the Permanent Seminar on interdisciplinary water studies.

Dr. Raúl Pineda

“We all make decisions about water and are not aware of them, in some places like the countryside we relate water as a value while in the city we see it as a resource, this implies a challenge in modifying what we think about water.

Raul Pineda.

This project seeks to create spaces that allow for the study, participation and prevention of all citizens in water issues. Under this premise, Nueve Arte Urbano will contribute to the visualization model in Querétaro by creating murals to explore and transmit ideas about the liquid. The seminar will start on March 22nd, World Water Day in the auditorium of Campús Airport, while the second session will be held on April 20th.

Dra. Tere García Besné de Vinculación Académica UAQ.

Every month, the themes related to water will be updated during the rest of the year in a cooperation between researchers, professors and citizens to generate a global awareness about water. Under this premise, Nueve Arte Urbano joins with all its artistic capacity to create murals that allow the citizens of Queretaro to always keep in mind the ideals of environmental care and the discovery of alternatives for the preservation of water and therefore of life.

“Humanity must be united by water.”

Edgar Sanchez.

The activities of the Water is One festival will formally begin in gallery 1 of the CECEQ on March 27th while the permanent seminar of interdisciplinary water studies will begin on March 22nd and so on every month for the rest of the year.

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Art as a collection of moments, Nosego’s proposal

By Chema Noriega.

What does it mean to be an artist today? What is art in 2018? As in everything else, history has shown us that the conception of art and the artistic has evolved between periods and societies. From cave paintings in caves around the world, they gave way to artistic manifestations that told the story of great civilizations from China to Mesoamerica, through the elitist art of European monarchies and the Renaissance, to the avant-garde of the 20th century, which diversified and democratised the world’s artistic scene, setting the stage for all the disciplines, techniques and means of artistic expression that we now classify or attempt to classify as art.

What is it that makes all these forms, rites, strokes, experiences, stains and sounds come together under one word? To tell the truth, I think we will never know and, more than approaching a consensus, the debate on the definition of the artistic is constantly expanding, hand in hand with the evolution of the media with which an artistic piece can be created and the spaces in which it can be exhibited or distributed.

House of Hayes. Mural by Nosego at Philadelphia, PA. Via www.nosego.com

In these times of ambiguity or plurality, depending on the lens with which one looks, it is common to question the artist about whether his work is artistic or not. And if a work is not art, then what is it? “It is what it is. I don’t think it’s anything unique or different. I’m just being myself,” says Yis Goodwin, better known as Nosego, in an interview with The Hufftington Post when asked why his art is not art. Born and raised in Philadelphia, Nosego is a multidisciplinary contemporary artist who embraces urban art as one of the many platforms on which his work reaches the public.

This philosophy that removes labels from the forms of expression and breaks down the barriers that limit creativity, is the one that allows Nosego to inspire people with messages translated into fantastic creatures that fuse with urban life and impact people’s imaginations in the blink of an eye. After being rejected by different institutions to exhibit and further develop his work, Goodwin saw in the refusal the perfect excuse to emancipate himself from the bureaucracy that usually obscures art, to take his work to the spaces where it could really have an effect on people: the street.

Mural by Nosego in collaboration with Forrest For The Trees NW. Portland, OR. Via www.nosego.com

In Nosego’s compositions different elements converge that give life to dream beings, composed of figures and characters that emanate from his imagination. According to Goodwin himself, these assemblages have their origin in childhood, when the uneven compositions that could arise at the moment of joining one toy with another evoked in him a new possibility to create and play. Now that same style of voluminous patterns and vibrant textures, which form characters converted into living ecosystems, has its origin in the conception of life as a set of moments, memories and lessons that structure our identity, a whole that represents us with our different nuances and defines us as people.

Mural by Nosego in collaboration with Branded Arts and Thinkspace Gallery. Culver City, Los Angeles, CA. Via www.nosego.com

For Nosego, life is a collection of small moments that together tell a great story, with this slogan he wants his art to take him to places where he can connect with different people and communities, always attracted by the mystery of not knowing what his next destination will be. With the arrival of spring in the city of Querétaro, the imagination of Nosego will also come to participate in the international festival SeaWalls: Water is One to be held from March 27 to April 15, 2018. Water is One, is a collaboration of Nueve Arte Urbano and the Pangeaseed Foundation, in conjunction with different private and governmental institutions, which aim to increase awareness of the global crisis surrounding the vital liquid, through the possibilities offered by urban art and muralism. Nosego will join a multicultural group of artists who, with sprays and brushes in hand, will translate the history and problems of water into visual narratives that connect with society, while contributing to the change in mentality that the current water situation on our planet demands.

Unknown Elements. Mural by Nosego in collaboration with Curiot and Branded Arts. Via www.nosego.com

You can learn more about Nosego’s work at:

https://www.nosego.com/

https://www.instagram.com/nosego/?hl=es

 

 

The equinox and balance.

By Ricardo Quezada.

On March 20 at 10:15 the spring equinox was held, dividing the day exactly into two equal parts. While this natural movement of the earth invites hundreds of people to visit archaeological sites or natural wonders, it also offers an opportune moment for in-depth analysis and reflection on the balance.

 

Mural de Diego rivera, un águila y bajo ella la conquista armada de los españoles
PALACIO NACIONAL Foto Pegatina 1

Millions of years ago, the earth was a single landmass united and in balance with nature and water; today humanity faces the greatest problem since its inception, that of recovering the balance that has allowed life on earth. Under this mission, associations, foundations, associations, collectives and society in general have taken to the streets to put the issue into the mouth through artivism and other actions that seek to preserve natural resources, care for flora and fauna, and the search for equality between people regardless of race, sex, belief system or origin.

Mural de Diego rivera, un águila y bajo ella la conquista armada de los españoles
PALACIO NACIONAL

As in ancient Mexico, duality has always been a fundamental theme: day and night, life and death, or the four elements, are tangible manifestations of the natural order of things, but above all of the balance that governs the world; the equinox, with its twelve-hour day and night, also symbolizes an opportunity to open up thought in a year that seems politically and socially complex. For ordinary people, who contemplate and live with artistic manifestations, commitment is optional but fundamentally necessary to achieve a collective dream.

Beyond the contemplation of the artistic manifestations characteristic of urban art, it is of vital importance to balance and calibrate the reality that the inhabitants of the world understand our role in our society, in its care and in the preservation of resources, under this slogan the mission of artivism is centered if in generating art, but above all in generating change, not only at an ecological level, but in all the spheres that make up society and culture, unleashing integral actions that allow each citizen to contribute to the flourishing of a new nation in harmony where balance, equal rights, obligations, security and opportunities, the preservation of natural resources and the recognition of historical knowledge are proliferating, in order to lead to the creation of a prosperous future, as the Mexican spring has naturally been for millions of years.

Tunas en nopal de Rivera

The Dome

By Édgar Sánchez.

La media esfera representa la bóveda celeste. En su cúspide, el domo presenta un “óculo”; agujero que abre la bóveda hacia el vacío del cielo, cómo narran los mitos culturales de la humanidad. Del óculo cuelga, 28 metros abajo, un péndulo de bronce de 280 kilogramos. El péndulo evidencia la danza entre el cielo y la tierra, mostrándonos la fuerza de gravedad y el movimiento de rotación terrestre.

Entre el Cielo y la Tierra, un grupo de creadores libres, crearán mensajes pictóricos para inspirar a la comunidad hacia la unidad, hacia la naturaleza y hacia la comprensión de que “El Agua Es Una”.

Before the universe was what it is, there was chaos, and consciousnesses were on the sidelines of the singularity and the great explosion. Later, and with the passage of the eons, the sky was separated from the earth, and our ancestors called the four symbolic pillars that sustained the spherical celestial vault “Tezcatlipocas”, separating it from the square Mother Earth.

“Mexico” is a mysterious word. It comes to us from a past that is lost in the dust of history. It is said that “Mexico” means “in the navel of the moon”, in the centre of the world. In turn, “Tenochtitlán” means “tunas on stone”, which in the lyrical language of our ancestors means “in the heart of the earth. The thousand Mexican identities unite in a cluster under this poetry: “IN THE OMBLIGO OF THE MOON, IN THE HEART OF THE EARTH, WHERE HEARTS ARE OFFERED TO THE SUN”.

Domo 1 Gómez Morín, Foto Gemma Sánchez

This is the poetry that inspires us to create “Water is One”: The dome and its pendulum represent the navel of the moon and the heart of the earth, and we who offer heart, work, narrative, dreams and resources; artists, writers, authorities, producers and people, we thank life and ask for support from Queretaro, to achieve our task with the highest quality.

Many thanks to all the authorities, to all the allies and to the four pillars of heaven, for allowing us to live fully, to create and to act.

Ometéotl (duality rules together over the universe).

Domo Gómez Morín, Foto Gemma Sánchez

#pangeaseed #seawalls #seawallsmx #waterisone #artivism#paintforapurpose #protectwhatyoulove #nuevearteurbano #streetart#transgraffiti #transgrafiti #elaguaesuna #culturalfreedom Este festival es realizado gracias al apoyo de Gobierno del Estado de QueretaroSecretaría de Educación del Estado de Querétaro UAQ Universidad Autónoma de Querétaro COBAQPinturas Osel Querétaro, Comisión Estatal de Aguas Querétaro MAPEI de México TMAQ Carranza 50 La Glotonería RMX radio Imagen Querétaro

Murals for the Earth, a gift from Jason Botkin

By Chema Noriega.

We arrive to March 2018 and the spring already begins to feel in Queretaro, with high temperatures and suns worthy of the warmest summer afternoon.  A very different reality from Montreal, Canada where, to this day, the snowfall leaves layers of 20 centimeters of water in the process of melting. The most basic reading would say that climate change is a myth and that the fact that snow continues to fall and accumulate on cars, sidewalks and roads today is only a symptom that temperatures are stable and that the Earth does not suffer the ravages of human activity.

Mural by Jason Botkin at SeaWalls:Toronto. Photo by Yoshi Travel.

The truth is that the Earth is a dynamic entity and its more than 4.5 billion years of history have shown that our planet is in a changing state and that everything that happens on it directly affects that process. Our era has given us different utopias regarding life on Earth in the coming years, but the ability to understand that fatalistic discourses about the environment can be eradicated if we change our mentality is a constant challenge for the societies of the world.

Mural by Jason Botkin at SeaWalls:Toronto. Photo by Yoshi Travel.

Back in Montreal, the city that is eagerly awaiting the end of an outdated winter, is Jason Botkin, an artist and producer whose work explores the possibilities of unconventional art to inspire society to radically change its way of thinking,”by stimulating greater awareness of relevant cultural, environmental, sociological and political issues. Throughout his career, Jason has collaborated in the production of more than 200 murals around the world since 2009, and has participated in solo and group exhibitions in Canada, the United States and various European countries. In addition to Botkin’s extensive portfolio, he co-created and directed the EN MASSE project, which aims to explore the spontaneous creation of large format black and white drawings and public installations.

Jason Botkin. Photo by Yoshi Travel.

Within his international collaborations, Jason also serves as regional project coordinator for the Pangeaseed Foundation in Canada. The issues directly involved in global warming, especially those that affect the Earth’s water bodies, are often too complex, limiting the actions that people can take to help reduce them. Pangeaseed, through its public art program SeaWalls: Artists for Oceans, aims to raise awareness about ocean conservation by creating large-format visual stories that interact with society and change people’s mindsets about the vital liquid and its ecosystems.

Mural by Jason Botkin at SeaWalls:Toronto. Photo by Yoshi Travel.

Jason Botkin will be present at the SeaWalls: Water Is One international festival, a new edition of the PangeaSeed program to be held at the Manuel Gomez Morin Educational and Cultural Center of the State of Queretaro, from March 27 to April 15, 2018. Botkin, together with a multicultural group of artists committed to water conservation, will accompany Queretaro’s spring with pints that, rather than beautifying the city’s urban landscape, aim to create visual metaphors that will impact the mentality of the spectators, in the hope that these messages will be translated into actions that will allow them to recover the balance between the Earth’s blue ecosystems.

Mural by Jason Botkin at SeaWalls: San Diego. Photo by Yoshi Travel.

You can learn more about Jason’s work at:

http://www.jasonbotkin.com/

 

https://www.instagram.com/robotkin/?hl=es-la

 

https://www.pangeaseed.foundation/artists/jason-botkin/