Veronica

André Magaña
transversal
October 7 - November 18, 2023

The neo-colonial dynamics of the Americas pose a vested interest in maintaining Mexico and its population as a universally poor working class in relation to the United States and the greater West.

This dynamic is made possible through the pathways established by NAFTA in the mid-90s, which led to a gradual influx of production industries, imported processed goods, and surveillance among other things. While the promise of job creation supported the marketing of the trade agreement, the number of jobs created over time represents a fraction of jobs lost in small-scale agriculture et al.

Through continued instability and mounting dependence, Mexico, as a nation and as a people are increasingly ghettoized and politically / economically subordinate to the United States under NAFTA, though it continues to diversify its trade portfolio in order to move away from this dependence.

The sculptures on view use materials from different industries and production processes that share a common history as imports from the West into the Global South. More specifically, many of these materials have political or physical origins in the United States and appear in Mexico through both direct and indirect means.

They have been produced or sourced through processes that are reflective of the industries from which they originate. In some cases, the methodologies of production recognize that some illicit means (such as counterfeiting or digital fabrication via open source databases) are necessary to produce a viable analog.

Through their will-to-exist, these sculptures demonstrate production processes needed to obtain power in the existing dynamics between the owner class and the working class.

– André Magaña