Mariel Rodríguez: Flowers of Evil

Opening: Fri, Aug 05, 19:00
Venue: ARTISTIC BOKEH, Electric Avenue
Admission free

'Flowers of Evil' presents an ongoing artistic research by Mexican artist Mariel Rodríguez about the coca plant and its journey(s) to Europe.

It traces the encounter of a millenary sacred plant with occidental science and its outcome as a sort of a botanical Frankenstein, so desired and praised as feared and persecuted. The installation proposes to rethink the history of cocaine, as an illegal recreational drug and a western construct, to shed light on the effects of imperialism on our relationship to nature.
Evoking the tradition of the cabinet of curiosities and the vitrines in historical exhibitions, the installation seeks to raise questions about representation in the construction of historical narratives and the role of museums in such a process.

Mariel Rodríguez is a visual artist and researcher. Her work explores the use of images in the fabrication of hegemonic discourses that help to shape different identities. Through her visual works and artistic research she seeks to bring forward questions about the entanglement of power with the occidental regimes of the visible, seeking to find poetic ways of subverting meaning.
She holds a Bachelor in Humanities by the UDLAP in Mexico and a Master in Critical Studies by the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, where she currently writes her dissertation.

This work is funded and supported by kültüř gemma! 2016, and it’s presentation made possible by Mz* Baltazar's Laboratory and RIAT Research Institute for Arts and Technology.

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