Ecologies of Care is an exhibition that reunites the work of four Latin American artists based on their shared exploration of interior landscapes and female identity. Mariángeles Blanco explores “blue” both as a color and as a mood that invites a state of introspection. Their work is a multimedia inquiry that reunites ceramics, watercolors, oil painting, and poetry to question landscapes as fixed exterior spaces. Against all exteriority, their work dwells on interior, fluid, and mobile perceptions of the environment. This exhibition is envisioned for El Abrazo Gallery (NY), where they will create an experimental landscape that combines physical works by Blanco, Fasoli and Quirno, and a poetic sound piece by Meiller. In a time of recurring environmental challenges, this exhibition aims to open up a reflection on ecology that goes back to its Greek origins as “oikos”, a term that originally referred to the household. By linking back environmental concerns to domesticity, the show aims to stand as a reminder of the intricate connections of Latin American cultures to nature, and how they defy Euro-Western understanding of nature and culture as two separated realms. By focusing on female perceptions of ecology, Ecologies of Care comments on women’s relationship to the environment: from Prehispanic conception of the Pachamama as “mother nature” to contemporary ecofeminist stances that see gender and natural oppression as related phenomena.
This exhibition is driven by some core questions at the intersection of gender and environmental studies. Landscapes are generally recognized as natural spaces that have been intervened and modified by human making and labor: Departing from this definition, Ecologies of Care aims to explore the particularities of female space making and labor: How does gender play a role in the making of landscapes? What is the relationship of domestic spaces with landscape making? What natural elements, cosmologies, and systems of belief are at play in women’s interactions with their surroundings? These are some of the questions that drive this group reflection on space, labor, and care where water stands as the underlying element. Against landscapes as fixed territories, one of the overarching features that reunites these artists’ work is fluidity. Change manifests sometimes as turbulence, others as peaceful backwaters. The liquid nature of moods evoques the ocean and its unpredictability, making these interior landscapes shift into waterscapes: spaces of oceanic depth where tranquility meets chaos. There is an immersive quality to Ecologies of Care: the exhibition creates a soft, mobile territory by bringing together physical pieces with an ethereal soundscape that thread everything together.
Valeria Meiller