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Longitudes cuts across Latitudes’ projects and research with news, updates, and reportage.

Latitudes' "out of office" photo album, 2012–2013 season

This is the fifth consecutive year [see 2008-9, 2009-10, 2010-11 and 2011-12] we say goodbye to the season with an 'out of office' post with some unseen and 'behind the scenes' moments lived in the past months. 

Regretfully, we're not exactly off to a beach-and-palmtree holiday, just slowing down our inbox activity as well as our posts on this blog, Facebook and Twitter. 

So happy holidays/felices vacaciones dear readers!  

3 September 2012: The season started with the exciting publication of the first #OpenCurating interview with the web team of the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, which became content partners of the interview series. "Beyond Interface: An Interview with Robin Dowden, Nate Solas and Paul Schmelzer" was the first of a series of ten publications which were released between September and April 2013. The compilation, gathers an array of voices and approaches around the challenges, expectations, and new possibilities that digital culture and social media present to contemporary art institutions. To what degree are curators, media teams, publishers and archivists concerned with a dialogue with their audiences? #OpenCurating has investigated these questions through how new forms of culture, participation and connectivity are being developed both on site and on line.

In 'Beyond Interface' Robin Dowden (Director of New Media Initiatives), Nate Solas (Senior New Media Developer) and Paul Schmelzer (Web Editor) of the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, discuss the museum's new website, relaunched in December 2011 following a two-year conceptual reboot and complete redesign.


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9 September 2012: Soon after publishing the first #OpenCurating interview, we participated in dOCUMENTA (13) series of readings based on their publications programme Readers' Circle: 100 Notes—100 Thoughts, for which we decided to read 'Lawrence Weiner IF IN FACT THERE IS A CONTEXT' (2011, Hatje Cantz). On the door steps of Fridericianum, we read Lawrence's book and played his voice reading some of the passages too. See our post on dOCUMENTA (13).


 Board announcing the 19h 'Readers Circle' event.

On the steps of the Fridericianum reading Lawrence Weiner.

11–15 September 2012: During the last week of dOCUMENTA (13) Latitudes facilitated the Nature Addicts Fund Travelling Academy, organised within the framework of the 100-days-long exhibition in Kassel, Germany. Here you can watch a summary of the week-long workshop that had 15 participants (Ackroyd & Harvey, Frédérique Aït‐Touati, Geir Backe Altern, Linus Ersson, Aurélien Gamboni, Fernando García‐Dory, Mustafa Kaplan, Zissis Kotionis, Julia Mandle, Clare Patey, Érik Samakh, Åsa Sonjasdotter, Elisa Strinna, and was punctuated by the partcipation of dOCUMENTA (13) artists Maria Thereza Alves, Toril Johannessen and Claire Pentecost.


 Im-port and Ex-port boat moared at Kassel's river Fulda. Photo: Nature Addicts Fund.

 Visiting Jimmie Durham's piece at the Karlsaue Park. Photo: Nature Addicts Fund.

Group discussion with Chus Martínez, Core Agent, dOCUMENTA (13) at the Import/Export boat. 
Photo: Nature Addicts Fund.

17 September–5 October: Installation and opening (27 September) of the two-part exhibition 'Latitudes Projects 2005–2012' and 'Incidents of Travel: Mexico City' as part of Casa del Lago's 'Sucursal' programme, for which self-organised, self-funded or non-profit organisations temporarily move their offices to Casa del Lago in order to expose the cultural strategies of such forms of organisation. 'Incidents of Travel: Mexico City', consisted of the invitation to Minerva Cuevas (19 September), Tania Pérez Córdova (20 September), Diego Berruecos (21 September), Terence Gower (23 September) and Jerónimo Hagerman (24 September), and to devise one-day-long tours throughout the city. More info and photos of the five tours.


E-invite to the opening of the exhibition "Latitudes. Proyectos 2005–2012 & Incidentes de viaje" at Casa del Lago.
 Around Lagunilla with Minerva Cuevas. Photo: Eunice Adorno.
 Visiting the Hemeroteca at the UNAM with Diego Berruecos. Photo: Eunice Adorno.

Lunch with Terence Gower at Sólo Veracruz es Bello!, Tlalnepantla Centro. Photo: Eunice Adorno.

Observing an overgrown ivy and an ash in Polanco. Photo: Eunice Adorno.

 Visiting the Espacio Escultórico in the UNAM with Jerónimo Hagerman. Photo: Eunice Adorno.

Installing one of the 200+ poster pannels that composed the exhibition 'Latitudes. Proyectos 2005–2012' gathering information on +30 projects presented over the last seven years. More on Latitudes' projects here.

 Post-opening chelas with artists Jerónimo Hagerman and Jorge Satorre at the social cathedral of the artworld in Mexico DF: the cantina Covadonga. 

8 October 2012: Release of the second #OpenCurating interview. 'Alguien dijo 'Adhocracy'?' with Barcelona-based architect, co-founder of the publishing project dpr-barcelona and blogger Ethel Baraona Pohl. Ethel was a member of the curatorial team of 'Adhocracy', the exhibition of the first Istanbul Design Biennial (13 octubre–12 diciembre 2012) which later toured to the New Museum's 'Ideas City' Festival (1–4 May 2013). Read here (in Spanish) or here (in English).

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17 October 2012: Mariana Cánepa of Latitudes participates in the season of talks Cultural Professions: the Curator, at the Aula de Cultura CAM, in Murcia. An initiative of the curatorial collective 1er Escalón.

Foto: Obra Social Caja Mediterráneo.

19–21 October 2012: Following on, we participated in a two-day meeting in Witte de With, Rotterdam, in preparation for Moderation(s), a year-long programme of residencies, performances, exhibitions, workshops and research initiated by Witte de With’s director Defne Ayas and Spring Workshop founder Mimi Brown, and presided over by artist, writer and curator Heman Chong.


Photos: Witte de With.

6–9 November 2012: Trip to Munich, to see Haus der Kunst's 'Ends of the Earth – Land Art to 1974' exhibition and attend the opening of Haegue Yang's "Der Öffentlichkeit" commission.


 Façade of Haus der Kunst in Munich.


Haegue Yang's "Der Öffentlichkeit" commission in Haus der Kunst atrium.


 Haegue Yang with Max Andrews discussing the installation process.

28 November 2012: Third #OpenCurating interview online. 'Itinerarios transversales' is the interview with Sònia López and Anna Ramos of the Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA). The new web of the museum, was launched at the beginning of 2012 and includes new features such as 'Recorridos' (Itineraries), a tool that allows visitors to create their own transversal itineraries selecting amongst the five thousand works that compose the MACBA Collection, besides videos, artist entries, podcasts, publications, amongst others. Read here (in Spanish) or here (in English).
 Testing the navigation on the iPad. Looking good.

5 December 2012: Fourth #OpenCurating interview up. 'Democratizando la sociedad informacional' analyses the practice of visual artist, art theorist and web activist Daniel G. Andújar. Though the use of irony, his work has questioned the use of new communicative technologies, the democratic and egalitarian promises these media prophesy, critisising their real yet hidden intentions to control users. Read here (in Spanish).



  17 December 2013: Reached the equator with #OpenCurating. Five out of ten interviews are up and running. The fifth, 'books_expanded_field' is the interview with Badlands Unlimited, a New York-based publishing house whose motto is “books in an expanded field”. Its publications and editions in paper or digital forms (e-books for iPad or Kindle) acknowledge that “historical distinctions between books, files, and artworks are dissolving rapidly”. Read here (in English).


The Walker Art Center's web continues to support the project re-publishing the interviews on their site. Read 'books_expanded_field'.


2 January 2013: Happy New Year and happy reading. Seventh #OpenCurating interview with Steven ten Thije, Research Curator at the Van Abbemuseum, in Eindhoven. In 'From One History to A Plurality of Histories', Latitudes conversed with the researcher from one the first public museums for contemporary art to be established in Europe. Under the directorship of Charles Esche since 2004, the museum has defined itself through “an experimental approach towards art’s role in society”, where “openness, hospitality and knowledge exchange are important”. Read here (in English).


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7 January–11 February 2013: Curators-in-residency at Spring Workshop, Hong Kong, as part of the above mentioned 'Moderation(s)' programme. Our residency continued the artist-led tour format we initiated in Mexico City a few months earlier. Hong Kong-based artists Nadim Abbas, Yuk King Tan, Ho Sin Tung and Samson Young were invited to develop day-long itineraries, thus retelling the city and each participant’s artistic concerns through personal references and waypoints. More info and more photos of the four artist tours.

First 'Incidents of Travel' public tour with Nadim Abbas, 19 January. Photo: Spring Workshop.

Visiting Chung King Mansions and the nearby Mirador Mansions on Nathan Road with Yuk King Tan, 24 January. Photo: Mimi Brown.


 Navigating Tai Po with Ho Sing Tung, 29 January. Photo: Spring Workshop.

 Sound tour around the Kwun Tong Industrial district, with Samson Young, 7 February.
  
The residency included participating in the workshop "A Day at the Asia Art Archive" organised in collaboration with Spring Workshop and Witte de With, Rotterdam, on 31 January and concluded on February 2, with an Open Studios during which Latitudes and Heman Chong mantained a conversation about their experience in Hong Kong and their curatorial practice. [Related posts: Read the May 2013 interview between Christina Li and Latitudes here.]


Concentrating in the archives, "A Day at the Asia Art Archive". Photo: Mimi Brown.


2 February: Open Day at Spring. Conversation between Heman Chong and Latitudes. Photo: Spring Workshop.


 During an interview and photo session for Ming Pao Weekly. Photo: Athena Wu.

19 February 2013: Public event of the #OpenCurating research at the Auditorium of MACBA, Barcelona. Latitudes in conversation with Yasmil Raymond, Curator of the Dia Art Foundation in New York. The conversation was later transcribed and published at the #7 of the series.


Yasmil Raymond during the conversation at MACBA's Auditorium. Photo: Joan Morey.

8–14 March 2013: Research trip in Dublin. Invited by Dublin City Council: The Arts Office, Latitudes visited art spaces, artists' studios and galleries in Dublin and Derry-Londonderry throughout the week. The diary included participating in the round table 'Within the public realm', alongside artist Sean Lynch and curator Aisling Prior at the Hugh Lane Dublin City Gallery [video of the talk here]; and a Curatorial talk at CCA Derry-Londonderry. During the week we were hosted by artists, curators and studio managers who took us around the Red Stables Studios; Temple Bar Gallery + Studios; Fire Station Artists' Studios; Green On Red Gallery; Kevin Kavanagh Gallery and the Project Arts Centre - Visual Arts.


Visiting Fire Station Artists' Studios. Photo: Liz Burns.


 Walk with our hosts Aileen Burns and Johan Lundh, co-directors of CCA Derry–Londonderry, around Kinnagoe Bay in Donegal, site of 1588 shipwreck of one of the Spanish Armada ships.


 Gathered plenty of material during studio visits, lunches and dinners. How do we deal with this, Ryanair?


20 March 2013: Mariana Cánepa of Latitudes visits A*Desk's HQ and talks to A*Study's partipants about some of the practical challenges that came up in recent projects, how they were negotiated and ultimately, presented.

Photo: Oriol Fondevila.

2 April 2013: Publishing the eight #OpenCurating interview, "Digression(s), Entry Point(s): An interview with Heman Chong", Singapore-based artist, writer and curator of 'Moderation(s)'. 



18–22 April 2013: Attended the first International Association of Curators of Contemporary Art (IKT) congress, this year celebrated in Madrid. See more photos of the three-day event.


(Above) Symposium at the Cineteca in Matadero and (below) visit to the newly opened MediaLab Prado.

24 April 2013: Since mid-2010 we been members of the Programme Committee of Hangar Production Center in Barcelona, and have extended our mandate one more year until a new board is formed. Below a tweeted photo of a studio visit to Rasmus Nilausen' working space, during one of our periodic visits alongside other members of the Committee Joan Vilapuig, Jordi Mitjà and Àlex Mitrani.


27 May–2 June 2013: Venice Biennale week galore. We published three posts on our blog on 'The Encyclopedic Palace', the National Pavilions and Collateral Events and of the ubiquitous biennale tote bags.

After the art overdose, Venice rewarded biennale visitors with incredible sunsets between the several storms and showers that plagued the opening week.

4 June 2013: In Madrid for an in conversation with New York-based artist Alejandro Cesarco on the occasion of his solo exhibition "La noche agranda su silencio”, Parra & Romero, Madrid. 


Photo: Parra & Romero.

As far as press coverage, Stephanie Cardon of Boston's Big Red & Shiny featured a profile in September 2012 titled 'Meanwhile in Barcelona: Latitudes and #OpenCurating'. In the Autumn issue of D'ARS, Italian writer Saul Marcadent mentioned the (out of print, unfortunately) publication "LAND, ART: A Cultural Ecology Handbook", Latitudes edited in 2006 in the context of other ecological-oriented projects. During our March visit to Dublin, we chatted with Anne Mullee about the (then ongoing) #OpenCurating research, the conversation was soon after published in the International section of the May-June 2013 issue of The Visual Artists' News Sheet. Also in May, writer and curator Christina Li, interviewed us for the Moderation(s) blog Witness to Moderation(s), an opportunity to look back at our January residency in Hong Kong.

In the past months, Max Andrews of Latitudes has published the following texts in frieze: 'Utopia is possible' (October 2012 issue); review of Julia Montilla's exhibition "El «cuadro» de la Calleja" at Espai 13, Fundació Miró; and forthcoming, an interview with Rotterdam-based artists Klaas van Gorkum and Iratxe Jaio also for frieze, as well as two texts on the 1979 documentary film 'The Secret Life of Plants' for the final issue of the Dutch journal Club Donny!



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All photos: Latitudes (except when noted otherwise in the photo caption)
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Interview between Christina Li and Latitudes on 'Incidents of Travel' for Witte de With's 'Witness to Moderation(s)' blog

From April 2013 onwards, writer and curator Christina Li (HK/NL) takes up the role of a designated Witness to Moderation(s) the year-long programme of exhibitions, performances and residencies that unfolds between Witte de With in Rotterdam and Spring in Hong Kong. As such, Li is invited to post regular blog entries responding to the multi-faceted projects part of Moderation(s).


Christina Li has been a part of Moderation(s) since its inception, and participated in the research and development workshop that took place at Witte de With in October 2012. Li will also be one of the four curators –together with Lee Ambrozy, Amira Gad, and Xiaoyu Weng– organising the day-long conference Stories And Situations: The Moderation(s) Conference to take place on 5 October 2013 at Witte de With.

The interview published below between Li and Latitudes was originally published on Witte de With's website on May 2, 2013.

Christina Li: “Incidents of Travel” in Hong Kong is the second iteration of a project that you started in Mexico D.F in 2012, could you talk a little bit about how the idea of inviting artists to plan an itinerary functioning as both an artistic encounter an alternative studio visit came about?

Latitudes: The idea of the tour guide is of course not new. Back in 2009 while we were doing a year-long project in the Port of Rotterdam, we organised a series of bus tours to the port where we would present projects by Jan Dibbets, Lara Almarcegui or Christina Hemauer and Roman Keller, etc. Listening to the feedback of the group that took part during those tours, we realised there was something very valuable about the idea of being (kindly) trapped in a bus for a day and to be taken around with a group of people whom you shared interests or even friendship with. Some were co-workers and took the day to talk about non-work related issues, to admire the landscape, to listen to the soundtrack that accompanied the bus tour and basically to enjoy a day away from the keyboard. We wanted to repeat what we thought was a successful format and thought our trip to Mexico DF was a perfect occasion for that.


Tour with Lara Almarcegui and botanist Remko Andeweg around the Port of Rotterdam, 8 November 2009. Photo: Latitudes. More images of the tour here

While preparing a small exhibition of our eight years of practice for Casa del Lago in México DF, we felt we needed to add a ‘here and now’ contribution, and suggested inviting five artists (Minerva Cuevas, Tania Pérez Córdova, Diego Berruecos, Terence Gower and Jerónimo Hagerman) to develop a day-long tour for us. The choice of artists was mixed, some we had met before (Jerónimo or Terence) but didn’t know their work in much detail, and others (Tania, Minerva and Diego) we had been following their work for a while, but never met them in person. Our invitation was very open, our idea was for them to develop an itinerary that helped us understand their creative world, and that included them taking us to their favourite (or hated!) museums, libraries, markets, monuments, housing states, shops, restaurants, etc. that were special to their lives or to their artistic practice. We offered all artists a fee, covered all food and tickets-related expenses and had a car to take us around 9am–6pm, after that, we used public transport. Experiencing any city accompanied by a local friend always offers a much deeper insight into any city, but navigating it with an artist whose work you admire, is even more meaningful as each site amplifies a personal connection.


Photo: Eduardo Loza 


Li: Did you choose to adopt a different approach in your invitation to the artists in the Hong Kong edition? As far as I understood, Nadim Abbas’ tour was open to the public, while Yuk King Tan’s, Ho Sin Tung’s and Samson Young’s were conducted in a more intimate manner within a smaller group; what was the reason behind this decision? What were the responses to Nadim Abbas’ tour?

Latitudes: No, the invitation was the same in both occasions, though in Hong Kong we mostly used public transport. We also had more time to prepare and digest information, as were a month in residence at Spring. In the end it worked out as one tour per week as that suited best the artists’ schedule. Nadim’s tour was the first and was indeed open to the public, it has been the only tour so far with this aspect, although it was still a small group, initially of around fifteen people. We were interested in pushing the format and of course this meant that Nadim had to consider practical issues like distances and locations more carefully (ie. avoiding long walking distances, accessibility for groups, food availability…) in order to be realistic with the timings. A few people joined on and off, some engaged more actively than others. It was wonderful to see that Hong Kongers were also discovering sites they had never been to, like the Waterfall Bay Park or the nearby Waterfall Bay. Somehow we were all tourists for a day.


Nadim Abbas tour, 19 January 2013. Waterfall Bay Park's waterfall. Photo: Trevor Young 

Li: Since these tours have always been meant for you both to converse privately with each selected artist and to get to know their practices and the city, has opening these tours up conjure a different perspective of how these tours could function for you both initially? How has this attempt challenge your thinking in mediating and presenting the immediate experience and documentation of these tours to a larger audience?

Latitudes: The tours were conceived from the point of view of research, and we haven’t wanted to necessarily burden the artists or the format with the expectations that they were participatory performances or some kind of touristic spectacle. We’ve tried to keep them quite casual and inconspicuous in this sense, and to respect the notion of hospitality in the same way that if we came to your house for dinner, you wouldn’t expect us to bring a group of strangers with us! Indeed this was literally the case in the day with Yuk King Tan, which concluded with a household of Filipina domestic workers making dinner for us – women whose trust and friendship she had earned through her personal affiliations and the concerns of her art. It is really not a question of us making the tours exclusive or private – we have not actually prohibited anyone else from coming along if the artist suggested it or was anyway okay with it. Yet it somehow seemed important to be able to commit to spending an entire day with them, and as soon as there is definitely something like an audience present (that might expect to be entertained or decide to leave) the dynamics and the logistics change.

The tours in México DF took place during five consecutive days right after our arrival, so the way we shared the photographic material was more direct via our Facebook at the end of each day. The exhibition at Casa del Lago opened only two days after we concluded the last tour, so had to come up with a fast solution to present our explorations: we projected a selection of 200 images as a slideshow, and displayed a selection of printed photos on the wall alongside a large map of the city with pins that located the sites we visited and the actual itineraries we followed written by the artists, which contained short descriptions of each site (we printed extra copies of these and made them available in the exhibition so one could pick them up and follow the route. These are now available to download from our website.)


Photo: Adrián Villalobos 

In Hong Kong we were able to tweet during the tours, so it was an interesting process of documentation-on-the-go, of keeping a live diary of one’s journey, and to receive real-time responses from colleagues all over the world – the tweets have now been archived alongside some thirteen sound recordings, Facebook and blog posts. We also published blog posts of each of the tours which include extensive photo-documentation (by us and colleagues who took part) of the day interconnecting each photo with paragraphs of the itineraries are written by the artists and our own impressions.

Li: You also have been to some other more specialised tours on offer during your stay in Hong Kong, were there more specific aspects of Hong Kong you were hoping to explore which guided your choices in attending these tours as a sightseer and a cultural tourist?

Latitudes: We were interested in studying what kind of readings the city offered away from the usual tourist sites (the Tian Tan Buddha, Victoria Peak, shopping tours, a day in Macau,…). We wanted to see if we could find more ‘marginal’ sculptures or sites that presented vernacular displays far from the polished and pre-packaged tourist experience.


1km of floating boardwalks, Deep Bay, Mai Po Marshes. Photo: Latitudes. 


We picked up hundreds of leaflets in the information office and found a couple interesting ones offered by the Walk Hong Kong company we thought were somehow out of the usual menu. We have always been interested in environmental issues and wanted to approach the high density of Hong Kong from another angle, from its relation to the surrounding nature. We visited the Mai Po Nature Reserve in the New Territories, a wetland on the Australasia migratory route, and ended the day in Long Valley in Sheung Shui, observing birds and farmers collecting large amounts of lettuces and watercress. This also tied in with another wetland we visited later with Ho Sin Tung, the Nam Sang Wai area, in the northwest of Hong Kong. This is to say that our own interests ended up tying in nicely with the sites, we visited with the artists. Samson Young took us to a nearby area on his tour, to the border fence that separates Hong Kong with mainland China where we listened to “Liquid Borders”, a soundtrack he has been recording placing contact microphones in the wired fencing and mixing it with the sound of water of the Shenzhen River.

Another tour we joined was the Feng Shui tour led by Susan Braun. We started visiting Norman Foster’s Hong Kong HSBC building in Admiralty built according to strict Feng Shui principles and finished at the Chi Lin Nunnery. The final one was with Martin Heyes, a former British Army officer and passionate World War II specialist, who took us to Devil’s Peak at the eastern extremity of Kowloon and to the Museum of Coastal Defence, to learn everything about the 1941 Japanese invasion of Hong Kong.


A group of Japanese tourists visit the battery on Devil's Peak. Photo: Latitudes 


Li: As a whole, what would you say about the kinds of insights you have gained about the city from these tours, which might be seen as complements to the knowledge produced from the more casual encounters you have had through “Incidents of Travel”?

Latitudes: The Walk Hong Kong tours were an opportunity for us to specifically learn about birds, marshlands, Feng Shui and the 1941 Japanese invasion, but most importantly it was an opportunity to discuss with our tour leaders issues that went beyond the tour script so to speak, issues like immigration, recent historical events such as the 2003 SARS outbreak, the current economic climate, the relationship to mainland China, etc. Curiously, all of the tour leaders were expats that had lived in Hong Kong for many years, so for us it was very interesting to hear how it was to live there today. The same goes for the artists, we absorbed a great wealth of information from each other beyond discussing the sites we were taken to. We talked about books, films, about the art world, what it is to be an artist and a curator today, etc.

Incidents of Travel’ and our residency was very much in line with what Heman Chong, moderator of the Moderation(s) the program, explained during the January press conference: Moderation(s) is about stretching time. Not surprisingly, the image he chose to illustrate the long term collaboration between Spring Workshop and Witte de With was a clock. That image stood out very clearly during our time there. The offered time gave us the chance to generate conversations with the artists, to find a common ground, to generously share and exchange some kind of knowledge, and to engage in multiple and repeated dialogues with locals and expats, a rare luxury one is not often given.


Latitudes' talk on 'Incidents of Travel: Hong Kong' and their curatorial practice during 'Open Day' at Spring Workshop, 2 February 2013. 


Related contents:
13 Soundscapes of "Incidents of Travel: Hong Kong";
Social media archive"Incidents of Travel";
Flickr album of the four tours of "Incidents of Travel".





All photos: Latitudes | www.lttds.org (except when noted otherwise in the photo caption)


This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

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Photodocumentation of Latitudes' "Incidents of Travel: México DF" a project for Casa del Lago

As the Casa del Lago exhibition in Mexico City draws to a close (on Sunday 4th November), we would like to share photodocumentation of the "Incidents of Travel: México City" project

Artists Minerva Cuevas, Tania Pérez Córdova, Diego Berruecos, Terence Gower and Jerónimo Hagerman were invited to develop day-long tours for Latitudes, articulating the city and their artistic practice through routes and waypoints in the metropolitan area. Documented and mapped in La Sucursal space alongside an overview presentation of Latitudes' projects ("Proyectos 2005–2012"), the project aims to explore the chartered itinerary as a format of artistic encounter with the capacity to bypass the convention of the studio visit through highly specific views of the city.


More documentation follows in this slideshow also presented in the exhibition at Casa del Lago.


Photos: Latitudes | www.lttds.org (except when noted otherwise in the photo caption)
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Inauguración de 'Incidentes de viaje' & 'Proyectos 2005–2012' en La Sucursal, Casa del Lago, México DF, 27 de septiembre 19:30h



Alongside 'Projects 2005–2012' – a visual index of the thirty projects of Latitudes realized since 2005 – Latitudes has originated 'Incidents of Travel' from its temporary office in Casa del Lago's La Sucursal. Artists Minerva Cuevas, Tania Pérez Córdova, Jerónimo Hagerman, Diego Berruecos, and Terence Gower have been invited to develop day-long tours for Latitudes, articulating the city and their artistic practice through routes and waypoints in the metropolitan area. Documented and mapped in La Sucursal, the project aims to explore the chartered itinerary as a format of artistic encounter with the capacity to bypass the convention of the studio visit through highly specific views of the city. 

Minerva observing the murals by Marion Greenwood at the Mercado Abelardo L. Rodríguez.

 View from Minerva's studio roof (Torre Latinoamericana on the horizon).

Browsing the 'Mexican Art Section' at a bookstore on Calle Donceles.

The route proposed by Minerva Cuevas focused on the concept of the public and its socio-economic associations. The tour began in the Plaza de las Tres Culturas in Tlatelolco, continued to the Tepito and Lagunilla neighbourhoods, and from there visited nearby markets, public squares in the historic centre of Mexico City. It concluded with a visit to the Torre Latinoamericana, a symbol of modernity of the city in the 1950s. Throughout the course of the journey, rural elements that constitutes an integral part of the city are highlighted.

  Exploring Insurgentes with Tania Pérez Córdova and photographer Eunice Adorno.

 Browsing Av. Insurgentes's lottery stands, copy & pawn shops, wedding outlets, tacos stands...

View of nearly collapsing 19 floor "Canadá" building on Av. Insurgentes.

The tour proposed by Tania Pérez Córdova traced the route of a stretch of Avenida de los Insurgentes – the longest avenue of Mexico City which extends from the Mexico-Pachuca to the Mexico-Cuernavaca highways. The tour focused on certain points up and down this thoroughfare, becoming a mental journey with the daily commute of the artist as its starting point.
Av. Universidad 1601. When Miguel de la Madrid left the Mexican Presidency in 1988, this apartment block was fitted with angled concrete blinds in order to block residents' views of his garden and house across the road.


Tacos of maciza (like pulled pork) and chicharrón (fried pork rind) made by Don Tomás at El Venadito, Avenida Universidad near the corner of Miguel Angel de Quevedo.


Murals and canvases on "Freud, the revolution and its elements" by Vlady at the Biblioteca Nacional Lerdo de Tejada. The library gathers the archive of the Secretaria de Hacienda y Crédito Público. Its collection is one of the most important archives in Latin America dating from the 18th Century onwards and focusing on economics.  

Diego Berruecos's tour encompassed several points in the city where he found the raw material for his ongoing investigation PRI: Genealogy of a Party. The itinerary takes in the Hemeroteca of the UNAM, where he photocopied obituaries relating to the 2007 sudden death Monica Pretelini, wife of the then governor of the State of Mexico, Enrique Peña Nieto. From there, brunch was enjoyed at El Venadito, which, according to the artist, "serves the best carnitas tacos in the city". This is a regular spot for the artist and is next to a major building in his research, which inspired one of the most interesting branches of his artistic genealogy: the series 'Architecture of Power'. This building is located in front of the home of the recently deceased Miguel de la Madrid Hurtado, 52nd president of Mexico. Finally, a visit to the Biblioteca Miguel Lerdo de Tejada and the Library of Congress, and end at El Sella restaurant "which serves the best chamorro in the city".


Estación de metro La Raza - Túnel de las ciencias: a metro transfer turned into an educational experience.


 Unidad Habitacional el Rosario: a 1972 condominium with its characteristic cube-shapped 'zotehuelas' (windowless cantilevered kitchen patios).


Torres de Satélite - a 1958 collaboration between architect Luis Barragán and sculptor Mathias Goeritz in Ciudad Satélite, northern part of Naucalpan, Mexico City.

Terence Gower's tour, 'Urban Models (Zacatenco to Tlalnepantla)' looked at universalist urbanism models in the northern sectors of Mexico City. The tour started at the 1963 campus of the Instituto Politécnico Nacional, an expression of order and building technology that perhaps hadn't quite arrived in Mexico at the time of its construction. The tour next visited two housing complexes: Unidad Habitacional El Rosario was from the post-war building boom that produced complexes like Tlatelolco, employing the urbanistic principals of density and land-use of Le Corbusier and the Athens Charter. The second, the Unidad Habitacional de San Buenaventura, is a recent "cookie-cutter" style private development in which identical houses are built in rows that blanket the landscape. Similar to the Politécnico scheme, these recent developments are attempts at imposing order on the chaos of Mexico City. Finally the tour visits Satélite, a low-density suburban-US style development that has generated its own unique culture. Lunch was at Solo Veracruz es Bello, and concluded with a visit to Metro La Raza.


"Copa de oro" and ivy in Casa Barragán, México.

 Colourful trajineras in Xochimilco take tourists and city residents alongside the 170km canals and chinampas (artificial islands, a vestige of Xochimilco's pre-Hispanic past).

 Black lava flow, lush greenery, concrete and red crushed tezontle at the incredible Espacio Escultórico at the UNAM. A 1978-1980 collaborative work by Federico Silva, Mathias Goeritz, Helen Escobedo, Manuel Felguérez, Hersúa y Sebastián.

Jerónimo Hagerman's visit delved into some situations, phenomena or cases in which he finds a particular, intense and emotional relationship between Mexico City, its inhabitants, with the outdoors, the wilderness and the nonhuman nature. The tour visited public and private spaces of different kinds, starting with the house-studio of architect Luis Barragán, followed by a tree invaded by ivy in colonia Polanco, the Espacio Escultórico of the UNAM, and a food tour around the chinampas (artificial islands) in Xochimilco. The day ended with a drink at Bellini, the WTC revolving restaurant which offers panoramic views of the city and a night visit to the Mercado de Jamaica.

All photos: Latitudes | www.lttds.org
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'Projects 2005–2012 / Incidents of Travel', La Sucursal, Casa del Lago, Mexico D.F., México, 27 September–5 November 2012

 Casa del Lago. Photo: Fabiola Iza

| UK |

Opening: Thursday 27 September, 19.30h

Latitudes has been invited to participate in La Sucursal (The Branch), one of the programme strands of Casa del Lago for which self-organised, self-funded or non-profit organisations temporarily move their offices to Casa del Lago in order to expose the cultural strategies of such forms of organisation.

Alongside 'Projects 2005–2012' – a visual index of the thirty projects realized since 2005Latitudes will originate 'Incidents of Travel' from its temporary office in La Sucursal. Artists  Minerva Cuevas, Tania Pérez Córdova, Jerónimo Hagerman, Diego Berruecos, and Terence Gower will develop day-long tours for Latitudes, articulating the city and their artistic practice through routes and waypoints in the metropolitan area. Documented and mapped in La Sucursal, the project aims to explore the chartered itinerary as a format of artistic encounter with the capacity to bypass the convention of the studio visit through highly specific views of the city.



Casa del Lago. Photo: Fabiola Iza

| ES | 

Inauguración: Jueves, 27 de septiembre, 19.30h

Latitudes ha sido invitada a participar en La Sucursal, una de las cinco plataformas que estructuran la programación de Casa del Lago en la que iniciativas autoorganizadas o sin fines de lucro, utilizan el espacio de Casa del Lago como una sucursal de operaciones, una suerte de oficina temporal, con el fin de exponer sus propias estructuras de organización. 

Junto a 'Proyectos 2005-2012' – un índice visual de treinta proyectos realizados desde el 2005Latitudes realizará el proyecto "Incidentes de viaje" desde su oficina temporal en La Sucursal. Los artistas Minerva Cuevas, Tania Pérez Córdova, Jerónimo Hagerman, Diego Berruecos y Terence Gower, desarrollarán tours de un día de duración para Latitudes, articulando su práctica artística y la ciudad a través de rutas y puntos de interés en el área metropolitana. Documentado y cartografiado en La Sucursal, el proyecto tiene como objetivo explorar la idea de itinerario como un formato de encuentro y eludir la convencional visita de estudio a través de puntos específicos de la ciudad.

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Newsletter #45 – Summer 2012


Newsletter #45
http://mad.ly/c60ad2 (in English) 
http://mad.ly/32fed2 (en Español)

Latitudes' current and forthcoming projects:

#OpenCurating, BCN Producció 2012 Research Grant, throughout 2012 + info...

Facilitators of the second Nature Addicts Fund Travelling Academy, 11–15 September, Kassel. Organised within the Maybe Education and Public Programs of dOCUMENTA (13). + info...

'Projects 2005–2012 / Incidents of Travel', in La Sucursal, Casa del Lago, Mexico City, Mexico, 27 September–5 November 2012. + info...

2005–12 Newsletters here.
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