Gabriel Mestre

The title of the talk is “Mexican Hairless Dog’s Revolution” in which he addresses how the colonial racism has prevailed in Mexican society since the 16th hundreds under the form of National State Institutions trying to erase, neutralize or folklorize all forms of indigenous knowledge.

Arrioja works with non-linear projects to generate different epistemological production that reunites artistic practices, the knowledge of the First Nations of the Americas, the history of the avant-garde art movements and notions from the critical thinking. His projects are to find different schemes of participation and collaboration with individuals and groups alienated by Capitalism and other production systems, promoting, among other things: aims of decolonialization, the exercise of institutional criticism and civil rights empowerment and the building of alternative and solidarian economies.

Since 2002, he has managed several projects as independent, self-supported or freelance curator, his achievements have been developed mostly in the fields of contemporary art and visual culture but also within the anthropology and the biology sciences. He has collaborated with selected institutions (public, private and personal ones) in Europe and Asia, as well as in the Americas, showing his exhibitions, publications and public programs in a number of countries such as: Sweden, Japan, Germany, Denmark, Austria, Cuba, Colombia and Mexico. Recently, his curatorial research, mediation and management of projects have been benefited by different international programs and institutions such as: Danish Art Foundation, CCA Estonia, CAC Vilnius, IASPIS, Icelandic Art Center. IFA, Goethe Institute, Austrian Cultural Forum and Jumex Foundation, among others.