Monterrey-born and based artist Yasodari Sánchez, delves into public space and natural areas as recreation spots for citizens in her exhibition En el cauce del Río, for Espacio Uno, where she displays her most recent work.

For several years now, the artist has focused part of her research on different aspects of Monterrey’s Colonia Independencia, one of the most important neighborhoods in the modern and contemporary history of the state of Nuevo León. This includes its musical heritage as the birthplace of the so-called sonideros (a figure similar to disc jockeys who has originated a cultural movement through Colombian Cumbia and Vallenato music), as well as trades, urbanism, and migration issues.

The neighborhood is located just across the street from downtown Monterrey and the Santa Catarina River runs between the two zones, crossing the entire metropolitan area. Except during the rainy and hurricane seasons, this river carries little or no water and has been turned into a public space with various uses, from sport areas to formal and informal commerce.

As a site so connected to Colonia Independencia, the artist questions the public nature of this space, where flora and fauna coexist with the surrounding urban landscape. Her three projects explore this idea through the video that will be projected on the walls of Espacio Uno, and photographs complementing it. In Planear en papel, the contrast between the natural and urban landscapes is imposed from a panoramic view moving along a stretch of the river, then the artist is seen carrying a huge paper airplane that, when launched, plummets almost immediately.

Largo de campo is a zenithal image that gradually moves away from the surface. In the foreground is a fragment of grass showing the white lines of a soccer field which recall how, decades ago, a part of the riverbed was used as a soccer ground where the community organized matches almost all week long.

In this context, the artist presents this fragment of a fictionalized soccer field, reflecting on the implications of public spaces in cities and the right of the inhabitants to recreational facilities, as they have an impact on the education and collective psyche of the people of Monterrey in particular, and Latin America in general.

Punteríos is a video with the image divided in two: in the upper part, the artist throws seeds of endemic tree species into the river using a sling. In the lower image, the camera focuses on the surface where the grains fall. Through play and recreation, the artist carries out an act of reforestation. Planear en papel and Punteríos refer to children’s games that were part of the development of creativity during several generations and no longer exist today.

In general, the projects displayed by Yasodari Sánchez at MARCO reflect on leisure devices as a right of citizenship, which encourage social cohesion and community organization.

In the Riverbed, Yasodari Sánchez’s project for Space One at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Monterrey (MARCO) stems from her decade-long research in the Independencia neighborhood. This proposal addresses urban issues such as the vegetation devastation of the Santa Catarina River and the consequent scarcity of green areas in the city. The works exhibited here are titled Largo de campo, Planear en papel, and Punteríos, in which Sánchez addresses the problems of ecological and social inequalities in specific neighborhoods of Monterrey, a socio-economic marginalization characteristic of the country, where access to dignified public spaces and the possibility of play distort the education and collective psyche of the people of Monterrey, in particular, and Latin Americans in general. 

Thus, Largo de campo presents the record of a fictionalized remnant of sports equipment that evokes the memory of this emblematic river. At the same time, Planear en papel and Punteríos refer to those childhood games that fostered imagination and are now absent from the socio-cultural psyche of the latest generations. Together, they emphasize the importance of protecting the river ecosystem while legislating to promote the right to recreation and public space in safe areas.

In the Riverbed is thus the second stage of the project that Yasodari Sánchez carried out in 2022 for the Macroplaza of Monterrey, in which she sought to shorten socio-economic distances by creating a public park. A-Plaza de saldo y bolsillo’s project was part of the International Festival of Santa Lucía’s visual program with Las Artes Monterrey in 2022. Following the poetic and political gesture of the artist, this exhibition aims to make visible the challenges of a marginalized community through actions in the urban space of Monterrey.