Panel 2: Insurgent Cities: Politics, Space and Urban Action in Mexico D.F. | Art, Politics, and the City in Mexico and China Symposium (Lecture, 90 minutes)
Abstract
Filmmaker Juan Carlos Rulfo presented “Searching for Identity,” an exploration of Mexico City as the center in which faces, lives, and rich histories come together in highly dramatic social and cultural demonstrations. Mexico City is many cities that live together, but do not know each other.
Artist Minerva Cuevas presented ""Disidence, Mapping Resistance in Mexico City,"" in which Cuevas explored her work of strategic public interventions, typically characterized by socially engaged and site- specific actions that take place either in public space or museums.
Theater director and actor Jesusa Rodríguez delivered ""Mexico City: The Insatiable Mouth,"" a sweeping and compelling commentary on the exceptional circumstances of violence and degradation that Mexico is presently undergoing. Rodríguez relates the great difficulty of actions of civil disobedience in a city made of many cities together, in which it is almost impossible to give visibility to a street performance and further wherein the regime exerts almost total control over media.
Discussant Gaston Alzate (California State University, Los Angeles) provided commentary.