The Studio

I’m writing this letter in the hope of motivating a conversation that moves beyond our fast-paced and brief exchanges on social media and the internet.

Dear friends,

I’m writing this letter in the hope of motivating a conversation that moves beyond our fast-paced and brief exchanges on social media and the internet. This is the first of a series of future updates that I plan to share here with you. I would be happy if you choose to stick around by subscribing.

In coming posts, I’ll be sharing the ideas and motivation that inspire this account. For now, and for those of you that don't know me, I’m a visual artist from Mexico City living and working in Berlin. I’m interested in the connections between science and art as seen through an ecological perspective. As I believe that it is still possible to animate imaginaries and poetics for better futures.

I want to share the exciting news that I’m in the process of moving to a wonderful new studio in the Wedding district of Berlin. This inaugurates the start of an important chapter of my life in the wake of personal changes. The time for the peacock. A moment denoted by strong and evocative images and vivid imagination.

My father was passionate about the I-Ching. He looked for advice in it when facing significant changes. I do too now.

I threw the coins: I got hexagram Kuai (breakthrough), which is one of irruption followed by a resolution. It is the image of a river flooding its banks, resolving its pressure, moving, and suggesting new endeavours —a breakthrough, as the name proposes. It asks for novel ways of thinking, moved by curiosity and affective sensibility.

Flooding, in this case, also means occupying the new space. To mark this transition, I am inaugurating Curiosity Lab Berlin, my own artist studio dedicated to artistic experimentation. It is a place to build networks motivated by conversations within an extended community to stay creative and resilient in today’s world spoiled by flatness and poor imagination brought by the commodification and standardization of life at large.

As it is now, the studio lacks many basic things. There is nothing inside but an empty space with lots of difficulties but great potential. Occupying the studio is the very first step. It seems self-referencial, but an art studio becomes a studio only after being occupied by the artist. This was true in the work of Bruce Nauman. He thought of the studio as a laboratory of a space of experimentation and interaction of materials, architecture, ideas, and objects, including his own body.

I draw inspiration from Nauman, but Curiosity Lab Berlin is also a space for dialogue, exchange, and collaboration. It brings together artists, authors, researchers, and environmentalists seeking to expand our artistic and ecological poetics and imagination.

January 2025

.