curated by Diego Gónzalez Gómez & Marco Valtierra.
Traslados is a portable and itinerant curatorial project that is activated through a performative presentation, in which curator Marco Valtierra and artist Diego González Gómez carefully deploy a series of objects contained in a suitcase. To make up this
portable archive, a group of artists who develop their practice in Mexico will be invited to lend an object with significant importance within their work and research processes. These are not finished works of art, but a constellation of peripheral objects, elements that usually remain out of the public eye, but are essential to understand the complexity
of their artistic production. These objects seek to trace an intimate cartography of each artist, revealing, through fragments of process and working tools, the silent but eloquent traces of their searches, doubts and findings.
During the performative action, Marco and Diego openly talk about the stories, conditions and questions that each object goes through: where does it come from, what role does it play in the artist's research, what questions does it raise or what paths does it open up, what is its role in the artist's research, what questions does it raise or what paths does it open? Thus, the display becomes an exercise in translation and mediation, where the portable archive is not only exposed as it unfolds, but also activated as a device for dialogue in action.
This portable collection includes the book De frente a lo que se oculta (https://sybaris.com.mx/fomento-sybaris/de-frente-a-lo-que-se-oculta/?lang=es), by Regina de Con Cossío, a recent publication that explores the work spaces of a group of
artists based in Mexico. This book shares a sensitivity towards the invisible, emphasizing the importance of paying attention to the traces, signs and clues that reveal artistic production as a territory in constant construction, where the intimacy of
creative processes unfolds. In this project, the suitcase becomes more than a simple container: it is an archive, a device in constant movement.
Inspired by Marcel Duchamp's Boîte-en-valise, this portable collection challenges the fixed structures of museums and traditional showcases, proposing other forms of flexible and reactive exhibition. The suitcase opens to unfold an ephemeral event, brief but intense, generating a different temporality: that of transit, of the instant that becomes an encounter. We constantly ask ourselves: what does it mean to take art with us, not as a closed and finished object, but as an experience that is activated, transformed and reinterpreted at each new destination?
As part of the experience, attendees will be able to take home a risograph print, conceived as an extension of the project: a portable piece that accompanies the gesture of displacement and extends the journey beyond the exhibition. It reinforces theprocessual character of the proposal and becomes an active fragment that expands the circulation of ideas and questions of the portable archive. Each deployment of the suitcase and the objects activates a performative dimension of the project: the arrangement of the objects does not follow a fixed script, but improvises and adapts to the space, turning the very act of installing into an ephemeral choreography. Thus, the installation becomes part of the experience, making the gesture of opening, arranging and sharing the objects a ritual of encounter. The objects can be arranged on a library table, spread out on the walls and floor of a gallery, occupy unsuspected corners of a shared workshop, or even unfold in the open air. In this way, Traslados not only proposes an alternative exhibition format, but also a position as an archive that does not close and is always ready to open itself to other readings. The exhibition does not end when the suitcase is closed: it disperses,
fragments and persists in the memory of the objects, in the pages of the book and in the conversations provoked.
This project is conceived to tour at least three cities—Madrid, Leipzig, and Warsaw—during the months of June and July 2025, activating in each destination a new reading, a new transit, a new conversation, in resonance with the spaces that host it.
The venue in Madrid, La Papelería, is already confirmed, and efforts are underway to secure and activate the project in additional cities. The perfomatic presentation lasts 15-20 minutes and the display of the objects could
take about 2 hours.
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Espacio Cabeza is an independent, non-profit space dedicated to contemporary art.
Founded in 2019 and based in Guadalajara, Jalisco, MX, it features an exhibition
program focused on the production, presentation, and dissemination of critical and
experimental artistic practices, working in collaboration with both local and international
artists and cultural agents. EC hosts a specialized library on contemporary art and
annually organizes the Curatorial Support Program for Artists. It is also the founding
institution of GRUHA, the Study and Research Group on the History of Contemporary Art
in Guadalajara. Espacio Cabeza has received support from the Ministry of Culture of the
State of Jalisco, the Patronato de Arte Contemporáneo (PAC), and Fundación Jumex
Arte Contemporáneo.
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Diego González Gómez (Mexico, 1994) holds a degree in Visual Arts from the National
School of Painting, Sculpture, and Printmaking "La Esmeralda". His artistic practice
explores states of emotional vulnerability through artifacts and installations, often
incorporating sound. In 2023, he was awarded a grant from the Jóvenes Creadores
program of PECDA Jalisco, and in 2021, he was selected for the Ecos Sonoros call bythe National Center for the Arts (CENART). His work has been featured in solo
exhibitions at galerie gänge, Estudio Croma, Espacio Cabeza, and O.Y.E. Oficio y
Experimentación. He has also participated in numerous group exhibitions at venues
including the Museum of Arts of the University of Guadalajara (MUSA), Ex Convento del
Carmen, the Raúl Anguiano Museum (MURA), Los Pinos Cultural Complex (Mexico
City), the UNAM Geology Museum (Mexico City), and the National Center for the Arts
(Mexico City), among others. Since 2024, he has been part of the team at Espacio
Cabeza (Guadalajara).
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Marco Valtierra (Mexico, 1994) is a curator and researcher, holding a degree in Art
History from the University of Guadalajara. He's founding member and the artistic
director of Espacio Cabeza, an independent space dedicated to the exhibition of
contemporary art in Guadalajara, and currently serves as Chief Curator at the Museo
Raúl Anguiano, a public institution focused on the exhibition of modern and
contemporary art. His curatorial practice has been enriched by a diverse range of
professional experiences and international engagements. Most recently, he participated
in the workshop Floating Texts: Unlearning to Write at the Berlin Summer University of
the Arts (2024), supported by a scholarship from the President of UdK. He completed a
residency as a visiting curator at galerie gänge in Leipzig (2023–2024), and undertook a
research residency at TANTAN, Guadalajara (2024). Previously, he participated in the
international workshop Commoning Collective Care. Curating on the Move, organized by
TBA21 Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary and OnCurating at the C3A Centro de
Creación Contemporánea de Andalucía (2023), and was selected for the Emerging
Curator Program at the Pilotenkueche International Art Program in Leipzig (2022).
Among the exhibitions he has curated are Out of Place, a commemorative exhibition for
the fifth anniversary of Espacio Cabeza (Guadalajara, 2024); HUH, an artistic
intervention in the public space of the PABO Theodor-Neubauer-Brücke in Leipzig
(galerie gänge, 2024); as well as solo exhibitions by Enrique López Llamas and Manuela
García at Proyecto Caimán. At the Museo Raúl Anguiano, he curated Masa solar.
Selected Works from the Zarur Collection, featuring works by Tania Candiani, Beatriz
Cortez, Ana Navas, Berenice Olmedo, Martin Soto Climent, among others; and
co-curated Todo lo visto, todo lo hizo. His projects have received support from the
Jalisco Ministry of Culture, Patronato de Arte Contemporáneo (PAC), and the Fundación
Jumex Arte Contemporáneo.
*The images in the following document are for reference only.