Minerva Cuevas’s performance for the Walter Phillips Gallery will highlight and interrogate the relationships between Banff, The Banff Centre, and its surroundings. Through research on the history of the national park and the town of Banff, Cuevas’s performance will call attention to the Park’s sometimes tenuous relationship to its surroundings. Cuevas’s performance, which will be durational, will be created over a two-week residency in Banff and will be on display during this time and through to the closing of the M:ST festival on October 29 in the Walter Phillips Gallery.
Characterized by public interventions, the use of media articulating campaigns that address economic and social processes, communications and biotechnology, Cuevas’s work consists of installation, video, photography and advertising resources. “I don’t think there is such a thing as ‘political art’. I think about the MVC [Mejor Vida Corp] project in terms of social activism, but I am using mediums and institutions from the art context. One thing is use elements from a specific social context to produce an art piece and another one to make a project useful in social terms.”
Minvera Cuevas is a social activist from Mexico City whose work combines artistic practice with creative politics. Cuevas gained international acclaim for creating Mejor Vida Corp. (Better Life Corporation) in 1998. As the sole representative for this corporation, Cuevas provides services that often disrupt the flow of capitalism. Although all of MVC’s products are free and available at http://www.irational.org/mvc, it is not philanthropic; rather the goal of this and other projects by Cuevas is to create a human interface through social exchange. Cuevas has exhibited at a number of international venues including Lisson Gallery, The Biennale of Sydney, Palais de Tokyo, Grizedale, DAAD Gallery, and Musee d’Art Monderne de la Villa de Paris.
Co-presenters
