"Food nourishes the body, art nourishes the spirit ...

My name is Adela Inés. My obsession with art started about two years ago. Much of this passion was born in the classrooms of the MARCO Museum, as well as in the courses and exhibitions that I held through the ENLACE program.

I remember when I saw Ai Weiwei's exhibition in 2019, I was struck by the pain and lucidity of the artist to show the reality of the 43 disappeared from Ayotzinapa without makeup. Have you ever felt helpless not to feel heard? Of not having the arguments and concepts necessary to defend your rights? Have you gotten tired of feeling like they don't hear you and then you have the urge to scream? I do… and the students' families too.

I have been taking all the Contemporary Art courses at the MARCO Museum for two years with Samuel Rodríguez Medina. That's when I understood how necessary it is to dare to confront art with contemporaneity. I think you need to be brave, get rid of prejudices, fear, shame; in other words, being naked of the soul to capture it. I also believe that it takes humility to accept that vulnerability and fragility are part of the human condition, so why want to hide it or make up? These concepts have allowed my relationship with art to be more authentic and honest.

This process has not been easy, contemporary art has an aesthetic based on concern, on horror, on reality. I remember that in one of those classes we were studying the "cursed philosophers" and analyzing society and its consumption as a way to fill gaps. It was one of many intense classes. At the end of the class I got in the car, put on the music that touches my heart and I went crying until I got home. That restlessness lasted me for several days, I thought about leaving the classes since I had the impression that I could fall into a depression if I continued with that rate of information that at first seemed pessimistic.

Later I understood that this was not pessimism but lucidity. This helped me to better understand Ai Weiwei's work and to use this empathy of pain to create and not to suffer in vain.

The MARCO Museum has been a platform for my artistic development. Last year in the ENLACE program, guided by Samuel Rodríguez Medina, I made a series of seven self-portraits called “Devorando” based on the work “Saturno Devorando a su hijo” by Francisco de Goya. This series was selected for the printing of a photobook in Bariloche Argentina, convened by Bex Latin American Photography Magazine. Also, part of this series is currently exhibited at the Nave 2 Arts Center selected in REVISION 2020: Nuevo León Photographers. Likewise, this series has been recommended in the social networks of Photographers in the World based in Mar del Plata in Buenos Aires Argentina, as well as in the series of Photographers of the North. The House of the Book of the UANL, together with 3 Nubes Ediciones, selected a sound video with this series which they published in its digital edition. It was also exhibited at the Museo Del Desierto in Saltillo Coahuila.

A month ago the culmination of the course of the ENLACE program this year was held with the exhibition at the Marco Museum, I participated with the work entitled "ALL". For this work, I made a hole five centimeters deep in one of its walls, which I filled with repairing paste combined with powdered plaster and a hair obtained from the “Topo Chico” prison. In this way I tried to integrate the symbolic presence of the invisible people of the city in an organic (hair) and inorganic (plaster) way. When the work was removed, part of the plaster and hair that I extracted from the prison remained in the MARCO Museum since the material is deep in the wall. It is a piece to reflect on the processes of exclusion and invisibility in the city and the ways of metaphorically integrating EVERYONE. From this project a series was born with which I won first place in the Garza García Plastic Association 2020 Annual Contest a few weeks ago.

Museums and cultural spaces are launching pads for the arts. Hence the importance of supporting and strengthening ALL cultural spaces, especially in an industrial city like ours where overwork and lack of time makes reflecting a luxury, as well as questioning, thinking, feeling, speak and express yourself. We do not need to think alike, but we do need to raise those concerns and reflect on them in a safe space to transform.

Let's hope long life to the MARCO Museum, the MUSEUM OF EVERYONE, since it is a place that touches the heart and that worries the mind. What would a city be without art? "

Adela Ines Gonzalez Villarreal

#StoryTellingFrame #MUSEODETODOS