Originally from Monaco and based in Mexico City, artist Adeline de Monseignat interacted with the area of the Museum’s Patio de las Esculturas, where she created a natural environment based on landscaping to reflect on motherhood, through an immersive installation entitled Seedscape (2024), the only work in the Enceinte exhibition.

The resulting outdoor space allows to appreciate plants from the region, such as aloe vera, as well as other species (among them monstera and fern), gathered in planters that follow the contour of the walls delimiting the courtyard.

On a gravel-covered surface sprout 40 sculptures created in Travertino Xalapa Marble, a rocky material that can be associated with some of the finishing touches in the Museum created by architect Ricardo Legorreta. Each sculpture is a reference to the reproductive female womb, which turns into life-containing seeds. They are arranged in eight groups of five units, ranging from 17 to 27 inches, or 44 to 68 centimeters, in diameter

The intervention is inspired by the artist’s personal experience with maternity, but also relates to the geological context of a city surrounded by five mountain ranges. Just as the uterus protects life, both the museum walls and the flora somehow safeguard the sculptures.

“Layers within layers, like life growing at the core of everything, the interactive work is received within the womb of the city, of the museum, of the courtyard”, the artist reflects.

The word Enceinte translates from French to English as “pregnant”, as it is the state in which life is gestated inside the uterus, while in other contexts it is used to refer to protection, as in enceinte de sécurité (safety fence); it also means enclosure: a sheltering place. The work is thus a space within a structure, like a heart enveloped both by nature and by the walls of the building. Therefore, the audience can attain a critical perspective from the creator’s feminist standpoint.

The new production of Dutch artist Adeline de Monseignat, based in Mexico City, poses a novel critical stance from the feminist positioning of the creator.

The installation Seedscape unfolds within the orographic boundaries surrounding the city of Monterrey and draws from Monseignat’s recent maternal experience. In this sense, the work suggests the protection of the womb on various levels and from different perspectives. Initially, through lush native vegetation, the artist addresses sculptures related to the female procreative belly, which unfold into seeds containing life; from another perspective, these structures seem to be contained while also limited by the walls of the Museum’s exterior courtyard. In a broader vision, this constantly moving landscape is created in relation to the five major mountain ranges surrounding the city, turning interconnected systems into the central disruptive axis of the proposal.

The recurring selection of materials in Adeline’s artistic practice, such as marble, gravel, and vegetation, is discursively related to the vulnerability of the human body. Hence, the artist has titled this exhibition under the French term Enceinte, which refers to “carrying life within the womb” and to the space within a vessel, in this case, directed towards the heart of the building. Finally, it is essential to specify the layers of synergies highlighted in this project: the city, the Museum, the Sculpture Courtyard, the vegetation, and the seeds – sculptural elements– seem to reinforce Monseignat’s feminist stance, which revolves this visual universe around human creation.