for five years Pounds, Libres and Roseshas been part of the programming with a gender perspective of the University Museum of Contemporary Art (MUAC, UNAM). This program is carried out from Brillantinas MUAC in collaboration with Andrea Bravo, Michelle Ponce, Carla Lamoyi and Casa Estudio Ladrillo, and its objective is to open spaces for visibility and reflection around the work that is done from self-management.
By the way, Natalia Millán, in charge of the artistic connection of the MUACtalked with The Economist. “Five years ago we were invited by the organization of the Book Fair and the Rose to collaborate in some activity, with this at the door we think that this space already contains very consolidated projects, with very famous publishers, that’s how we thought of a space for young artists who could sell and present their projects”.
A very important and defining part of this project is to give it a gender approach, but not just a feminist one, here the doors are also open to dissidents and non-binary people. “For five years we have been working with many projects that, as the name says, are free and free.”
Every year 40 projects come together, some already from home and others are rotating, what this has generated, from the interviewee’s point of view, is “a very nice community, with a supportive and safe space for women and dissidences within the museum and within the world of independent printing and publications”.
What can we find?
This space is dedicated to self-management, therefore, they are small editorial projects, there is even self-publishing that opens up the perspective of what a book can contain. We also find the fanzine, or the graphic novel, since the idea of self-publishing also has a lot to do with drawing and graphics.
Millán explains that in these projects there is a lot of the idea that all print is political, which is why they also work with the poster, stickers, t-shirts and different ways of carrying messages on different platforms. “We love the idea that one can carry messages on clothes and in our daily lives.”
All this material becomes a method of denouncing, especially in fanzines, which promote this idea of doing it yourself, for example, the Niño Cucaracha project, they are fanzines to explain how to use screen printing elements, or how using the sewing machine, that is, it touches even economic problems, going through ecology and other topics”.
“We are interested in raising the perspective of the future of learning to revalue objects, to compose them, to not make more garbage, to learn to recycle and to change the idea that artisan productions are small, but also generate interesting value in terms of acquisition and in the economy.
On this occasion, we are accompanied by very small projects, so there will probably be productions that will not be found again after this fair, which generates a very special value in these materials.
As part of the most important projects this year, there will be the presentation of a compilation of Queer Manifestos made by Histeria Revista, and the compilation of a graphic novel called Art Morras, by the artist Yuri Peña, which could be seen for several years. in the form of a fanzine, poster and stickers and which today is already a book thanks to Miau Ediciones, a publishing house that stands out for texts of feminist thought and has also given visibility to women artists.
A safe space for the community
Millán assures that the projects of Libras y Libres separate themselves from the big publishers that have no eye for small projects, “which are also very important and start from a very different artistic context, but very valid and very real, it is about the young community.
He emphasizes that this project has been the effort of many people and the work of many projects to maintain it as a safe working network and that they can generate a network with other projects that have these same intentions and visions of the political and aesthetic. “I don’t think there is a space with that security, neither inside the university nor outside.”
For this reason, after five years, a compilation talk is also scheduled, “we want to emphasize here that it is a safe space and that it has cost us a lot of work, but at the same time an incredible and beautiful effort within the MUAC”.
Where and when?
- The Libras, Libres y Rosas Fair is located in the MUAC Agora
- Date: April 22 and 23
- Schedule: 12:00 to 18:00 hours
There will also be an online program, with two workshops, one on literary creation and the other on ceramic fanzine. In addition, several publications from the Brillantinas MUAC platforms (a feminist and collective work space with a gender perspective) will be on sale.
For more details you can consult the page: https://muac.unam.mx/evento/libras-libres-y-rosas
