Publication

  • Water Spells
    Adriana Salazar
    Editor
    Genaro Amaro, Mariana Balderas, Consuelo Bonfil, Marcelo Canteiro, Dean Chahim, Fernando Córdova, Ramón Domínguez, Oscar Escolero, Carlos Gamboa, David Gutiérrez, Diana Jiménez, Brenda Ortiz, Ariadna Ramonetti, Sandra Rozenthal, Assembly of peoples of the San Angel Screes, and Carolina Silva
    Contributors
    Pitzilein Books, 2022
  • GRANTEE
    Adriana Salazar
    GRANT YEAR
    2021

Carlos Gamboa, "A development project at Aztecas avenue and the shallow aquifer below," 2021, Mexico City. Courtesy the artist

Water Spells attest to the multiple and ubiquitous nature of water. From their different dimensions—articulated, tense, or in conflict—the text and the images gathered here constitute a key for deciphering, critiquing, and even defending against the asymmetries in the diverse conceptions of water we employ or that are foisted on us. In this sense, they’re also a tool to inhabit the quintessential contradiction of metropolitan water’s courses: it is one and many, it’s close and distant, an intimate bond to the territory and a simultaneous extraneousness. We who drink and pour water throughout this city are also a part of this turbulent cycle, and thus the contradiction courses through us as well: the water we drink runs through our bodies and lives in them. The present invocations may suggest, if we allow them, a calling to the water inside us, so we may connect with that water continuum that had been withheld from us.

Adriana Salazar is a Colombian artist based in Mexico. Her work is transdisciplinary, collaborative, and research oriented. It identifies entanglements between nature and culture within certain Latin American cities. She holds a bachelor’s of fine arts with honors from Jorge Tadeo Lozano University, Colombia; a master’s in philosophy from Javeriana University, Colombia; and a doctorate in art and design from Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico. She recently published Lake Texcoco: Encyclopedia of Things Living and Dead, with the support of the Jumex Foundation for Contemporary Art and the Ministry of Culture of Colombia.