A selection of 5 projects around migrants was exhibited last March 2019 at the Kulturzentrum Alter Schlachthof (www.alter-schlachthof.be) in the city of Eupen, Belgium. The research and room texts were in charge of the Pascale Naveau, Sociologist.
Human Mobility is a retrospective of the work of Mexican visual artist Cristian Pineda Flores. Since 2006, the artist has been working around the subject of migration, which is why he has been travelling to the Mexican, American and European borders ever since. These borders are the testimony of a geographic, political, social, economic and cultural fracture, but what intrigues the artist the most is the roll of the human being in this both globalized and fractured world.
Human Mobility is a series of 10 different artistic projects, which include participatory art in collaboration with migrants or asylum seekers, installation projects, photography projects, 4 documentaries, an audio-visual piece, as well as painting projects, sculpture and drawing.
In Mexico, these dozens of projects and artistic experiences make Cristian Pineda an artist of note within the subject of art and migration. He has been gaining artistic and field experience for 15 years both nationally and internationally. Throughout his trajectory, the artist has exhibited in Mexico, the United States and Europe.
The European premiere of a selection of 5 projects by the artist was displayed in Eupen, Belgium from March to April 2019 at the Kultutzentrum Alter Schlachthof (www.alter-schachthof.be).
This exhibition is organized in different rooms, each in which a specific project was displayed. The overall subject of the exhibition is migration. This subject is divided into different sub-themes such as participatory art, violence, the border, climatic migration, asylum seekers in Europe, etc.
Wall texts accompany each project individually. These texts are written by Belgian sociologist Pascale Naveau, who specializes in artistic experiences within the context of structural and extreme violence.
For future itinerant exhibitions, the exhibition could be presented in the format which was used in the premiere (as in Belgium-Alter Schlachthof), or display a new selection depending on the rooms and specific requests of possible display areas. The artist will then produce a spatial piece which can be ephemeral and designed specifically for the exhibition area, taking into account the space, its localization, its dynamic, its habits and its specificities.
The exhibition Human Mobility may be accompanied by various activities, for example action-dance, live sound art, discussion panels, or guided tours about the participatory art subject. The exhibition proposes a multidisciplinary dynamic in which parallel actions are proposed to the visitors during the time that the exhibition is displayed.
During its premiere in Eupen, Human Mobility was visited by art lovers, groups of migrants and asylum seekers, schools, and different media.
This diversity of visitors allows socialization and dialogue around the migration subject, from the point of view of Cristian Pineda’s work and artistic experience.
