Yale University just published a list of the 16 World Fellows chosen for 2012, and I am happy to say I am one of them.
Its an amazing program with a postgraduate standing that basically puts all Yale resources (and then some) at our disposal… so off to Yale and its classes and libraries and campus conversations from August to December. Ajá. Intoxicating world indeed.
(Gracias Yale.)
Back in Mexico City after a week of great films and impossibly blue oceans.
“The Man Who Lived in a Shoe”, our feature-length doc was in competition.
Had a ball, and a very fun screening–full house and a moving Q&A that lasted almost an hour.
This, here, is an article in Mexican press that recounts that night in Playa del Carmen.
Yes. News just out. We are soon off to the Guadalajara Film Festival–considered one of the most important showcases for Latin American Films–with our Man and his shoe.
After the break you will find the complete list of selected films.
(I am specially eager to see the new films by Juan Carlos Rulfo and Everardo Gonzalez;Â two of Mexico’s best doc filmmakers, who are also in competition.)
Yep. Bernard is in town once again. But this time he is not only descending for tacos, but actually back in Mexico for good, after many years of living in NYC.
Which makes me very happy indeed. So as part of my own personal celebration, I am reposting a blog entry I wrote in Feb 2010 about a VBS.tv episode that Bernardo and I did together.
Enjoy.
(Y bienvenido señor!)
+++
Some months ago, I got a call from Bernardo Loyola–senior editor at VBS, (plus DP, occasional producer, also director and now a dear friend who brings gifts in the form of chocolates with truffle oil and sea salt when he comes to visit Mexico City).
He had just read an article of mine that was published in Vice Magazine, which started off describing a certain amusement park in a certain indigenous town:
(“There is a certain amusement park in Alberto Town, in the Mexican state of Hidalgo. It is run by hñahñu Indians. There, instead of the usual merry-go-round or what not, amusement takes a different turn: one can pretend for a couple of hours to be an illegal immigrant trying to get across the border. You will be chased for 18 kilometers; there will be shots, barbed-wire fences, cactuses, sirens, shouting, running for cover and even a theatrical death or two: all for 25 bucks a head. It is a simulacrum of the “torturous travails of a ‘mojado’ crossing the border, with educational objectivesâ€, the organizers have explained several times. Non withstanding its educational and entertainment value “for the whole family, sometimes people even bring babies, like in real lifeâ€, the amusement park has been criticized by some as so-called training grounds for people who are truly planning to get across the border; by others for treating lightly the terrifying ordeal that real immigrants go through, in search for something a lot more basic than the American dream: just plain old food on the table and a roof over their families heads.
The idea for the theme park—even if it is in central Mexico, far from the real border– was not gratuitous. The town’s number of inhabitants dwindled to a little over two hundred (compared to an average of two thousand in former years) because their population started immigrating to the USA. So a council was formed and they decided upon a strategy: to gather stories of people who have been there and done that, all while reviving an ecological park and guaranteeing steady income for their townsmen so they would no longer feel the need to cross the border; only pretend to everyday. Almost 80 towns-people work there, don their police uniforms or become masked coyotes for the tourists as soon as the sun comes down, so they can imagine what the real thing is like.”)
So, yes, Bernardo had read this, and was calling from New York with a proposal: that we travel together to Alberto and do a 30 minute documentary for VBS.
And so we did. We ran in the dark for a few hours, huddled beneath the bushes,  hopped on ‘Border Patrol’ trucks with wailing sirens, heard stories of real crossings, and all the time our feelings verged madly between enjoying the surreality of it all and quietly pondering the complex social scenario at our northern border–so palpably visible in this small town–, mulling over questions with no easy answers. Bernardo, Rodrigo Teie (who assisted us with an additional camera) and I where in a thoughtful mood on our drive back to Mexico City.
No easy answers, no. But creative ones in Alberto: that, for sure.
Click, click click to see the short VBS documentary.
Today! Tóxico in conversation with the wonderful Daniel Hernández– author, journalist, and the main man behind the Intersections blog.
We will be talking about our respective projects and creative industries in Mexico.
More info here.
Mmm, yes, the original TED Conferences: Long Beach 2011.
Follow us on Twitter at @ToxicoCultura
And check out he incredible programing for this year at www.ted.com)
(Let the mind-games begin.)
—
(Tóxico’s founder is a TED Senior Fellow 2010-2013)
(Follow the TED Fellows team at @TEDFellow)
(I am the guest blogger at i heart photograph Nov 22 – 28. Do come visit)
(And thanks to Laurel Ptak for the invitation)
This new book is out today, with an essay on arts, culture and creativity by yours truly.
Ya veremos qué tal.
Happy to announce that Tóxico will be participating in Postópolis! DF, from the 8-12 June; very excited to see all that international blogging talent flying into DF, it promises to be a great event with an amazing line-up of talks:
*
“Storefront for Art and Architecture, in partnership with Museo Experimental El Eco, Tomo and Domus Magazine, will host the third edition of Postopolis!, a public five-day session of near-continuous conversation curated by some of the worldʼs most prominent bloggers from the fields of architecture, art, urbanism, landscape, music and design. 10 world-renowned bloggers from Los Angeles, New York, Turin, Barcelona, London and elsewhere will convene in one location in Mexico City to host a series of discussions, interviews, slideshows, presentations, films and panels fusing the informal and interdisciplinary approach of the architecture blogosphere with rare face-to-face interaction.
Each day, the 10 participating bloggers will meet in the magnificent courtyard of Museo Experimental El Eco, designed by Matthias Goeritz, to conduct back-to-back interviews of some of Mexico Cityʼs most influential thinkers and practitioners – including architects, city planners, artists and urban theorists but also military historians, filmmakers, photographers, activists and musicians. The talks will be conducted in either Spanish or English, and translations will be available. Each day of talks will end with an after-party hosted by some of Mexico Cityʼs most influential music blogs.
The first Postopolis! took place in the gallery space at Storefront for Art and Architecture during the summer of 2007, and a second edition was held in Los Angeles in 2009.
Participating blogs:
Urban Omnibus (Cassim Shepard)
Intersections (Daniel Hernandez)
DPR Barcelona (Ethel Barona Pohl)
Toxico Cultura (Gabriella Gomez-Mont)
Tomo (Guillermo Ruiz de Teresa)
Mudd Up! (Jace Clayton aka DJ /rupture)
Edible Geography (Nicola Twilley)
We Make Money Not Art (Regine Debatty)
Strangeharvest (Sam Jacob)
Wayne & Wax (Wayne Marshall)
***
More info on speakers and schedules here.
(See you there)
***
Twitter: @postopolis, #postopolis
@toxicocultura
***
Partners
Museo Experimental El Eco, TOMO, Domus Magazine
Organizers
Joseph Grima, Daniel Perlin, CeÌsar Cotta, JoseÌ Esparza
Sponsors
Mexicana, British Embassy, Urbi Vida Residencial, UNAM DifusioÌn Cultural, UNAM Museo Experimental El Eco, Cityexpress, XXLager
*
(Lots of news, soon, right here: deliriously paced blogging will begin come June.)
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqxGBXolmw4[/youtube]
I arrived in Buenos Aires two weeks ago. I stay for a little over a month. I have been living close to a train track, 100 meters away from an old metal bridge where  one can lean against the railing with a cup of hot coffee to watch the trains pass by. I have been editing my first feature-length documentary with el dueño de la tijera y el péndulo, la barbarie doméstica, editor descalzo, Felipe Guerrero.
Watch a fragment of his experimental film “ParaÃso” above. Directed by him and music by our friend Sebastián Escofet.
(10 am)
(Back to work)
(Mmm, film)
Tóxico Think-Tank: Project No. 001  is about to be launched.
The team is now being formed; and I am thrilled to be working with a very talented young duo of designers: señor Manuel Bueno and monsieur Santiago da Silva, of Combo, who will be project’s creative leaders.
(They also designed the great infographics you see above, presented a few weeks ago to TED attendees.)
More news coming soon.
“The case of a growing scene at the intersection of education, pedagogy and art in Mexico”.
You can read the essay–and also see my video interview with SofÃa Olascoaga–right here.
Flying on Sunday to LA, on my way to Long Beach, on my way to more (and more and more) TED, Â starting my three-year TED Senior Fellowship. Excited. Looking forward to the bombardment, the too-muchness, the torrential and merciless rain of ideas upon the head.
Will try to post a few things here, if the delirious pace allows. I will, at the very least, be twittering away.
Are you following us already? @toxicocultura.
And check out the incredible line-up of speakers.
Mmm.
TED.
Live.
SÃ.
I recently did a Q&A with América Late, an Argentina-based magazine focused on creativity in the Latin American Region.
You can read it here.
Alexis Okeowo interviewed me about a month ago, for MIL, The Economist’s Cultural Supplement.
It was published yesterday. And you can read the Q&A here.
Cooking Grill No. 1
Cooking Grill No.2
Glass, plate, spoon
Weapons
Weapons made with the border of windows
—-
A few days ago we watched A Man Escaped, by Robert Bresson: a film–based on a true story– that recounts a man’s escape from prison by turning ordinary and seemingly innocent objects into his means to freedom: that turning something into something else.
As the movie ended, I remembered an incredible project by Toño Vega Macotela, wonderful Mexican artist. I also remembered the day I accompanied him to one of Mexico City’s largest prisons, to help him take the pictures you see above. Ah. SÃ. That turning something into something else. Not for escape: but for life inside jail. These objects you see in the images above where constructed (illegally of course) by the prisoners.
After the break you can read an interview that I did with Toño for Vice Magazine. where you will find a fuller description of his incredible project.
Ah, yes. The news in now official:
I have been chosen as a TED Senior Fellow.
Not only am I incredibly excited to be able to personally attend TED during the next three years, but also deliriously happy to be part of such an amazing group of people from all over the world.
The TED Senior Fellowship will be a beautiful excuse to take the Tóxico platform to the next level, and many new multidisciplinary cultural projects are on their way; most of them with the support and council of the oh so very impressive TED platform.
So more news soon, right here, very soon.
And thank you to the amazing TED team for the vote of confidence. We will do all we can to grow to the measure of new expectations.
***
TED CONFERENCE ANNOUNCES THE 2010 SENIOR FELLOWS
20 outstanding individuals chosen for three-year fellowship
NEW YORK, December 1, 2009 — Organizers of the TED Conference today announced the inaugural class of TED Senior Fellows.
The TED Senior Fellows program is an extended, three-year fellowship awarded to 20 individuals from the disciplines of arts, science, entrepreneurship, the NGO sector and education. Senior Fellows are selected from the previous year’s class of TED Fellows. Over the course of their Senior Fellowships, the Senior Fellows will work on projects within their individual disciplines.
Benefits to the Senior Fellows include attending five additional TED conferences (TED and TEDGlobal), participating in five Senior Fellows pre-conferences, the potential to deliver a full-length talk on the TED University or main TED stage, and the possibility to have that talk posted on TED.com.
The Senior Fellows’ responsibilities include mentoring the newer Fellows, holding a TEDx event in their communities, posting on the TED Fellows blog, and year-round participation in the TED community.
“Of the 65 outstanding Fellows that joined us at TED and TEDGlobal this past year, we are thrilled to welcome 20 into the Senior Fellows program,†says Tom Rielly, TED Fellows Director. “This group is especially important to us, as they pioneered the Fellows program. We look forward to helping them grow as leaders, and to assisting them to further their important work.â€
Meet the 2010 TED Senior Fellows:
One morning, hunting the Mexico City flee markets, I came upon a small battered suitcase that caught my eye. When I opened it up I was surprised to find it full of old photographs, negatives, postcards and other personal mementos from the 30s and 40s. There was a whole story to be woven, image by image: I could tell that the original owner was both an amateur photographer and also an amateur physicoculturist; I could easily imagine that this suitcase kept a certain (nameless) young man’s favorite pictures, plus dozens of self-portraits in different stances and under different guises. I was mesmerized by all that was there to be inferred, and also wondered about how such a suitcase ended up in a stranger’s hands. It made me think of the story of The Mexican Suitcase–a suitcase full of negatives of the Spanish war, shot by Capa et al–and also of the suitcases that someone found on the streets of Massachusetts, full of pictures of a ravaged Hiroshima after the war… both of them surprisingly full of important historical contents. And then there was this suitcase, this other Mexican suitcase, also full of images, of a very different nature. The contents are not historical, but it is history nonetheless: a personal history taken, kept, forgotten and lost and then sold. Because yes, I bought it with all it contained. And Tóxico then invited several talented visual artists to reinterpret the materials–or rather be inspired by them, to propose their own.
Today the suitcase flew into Cuba, ready to be shown at the Fototeca, in Habana. Besides, Alinka EcheverÃa–wonderful Mexican photographer, and one of the artists involved–will be working with several talented local photographer’s: the suitcase will leave the island with a new artist-book, created collectively.
And so the suitcase will travel now, and keep on traveling, and it will acquire a will of its own. It will travel with what it contains, both the new and some of the old, making space for both chance and accident, and at every stop a new artist will be added to the list and at every gallery or museum the project will be presented in a different type of installation. And just like before: who knows where it will end up, and in whose hands.
—
Artists: Ramiro Chaves, Mark Powell, Mezli Vega, José Luis Cuevas, Carlos Casas, Maggie Delgado, Santiago da Silva, Carlos Ãlvarez Montero, Alinka EcheverrÃa, Lorena Moreno, Andrés Padilla, Corine Vermeulen, Alfredo Moreno, Omar Gamez, Gabriella Gómez-Mont and the anonymous photographer, the original owner of the suitcase.
–
(Muchas gracias a Alinka EcheverÃa, Lorena Moreno y Maggie Delgado por su ayuda. Y gracias a Nelson–curador de Noviembre fotográfico– por su invitación.)
–
(Soon a website for la Maleta)
Denise Dresser, Javier Elguea, Claudia Fernandez, Gabriella Gómez-Mont, Gabriel Guerra. Blanca Heredia y Damon Rich:
en Pase Usted, ideas sobre educación.
(O de intoxicación, en mi caso)
(Nos vemos por ahÃ)
.
It is official!
Says the TED press release:
TED CONFERENCES ANNOUNCES 25 TED FELLOWS FOR TEDGLOBAL IN OXFORD, UK
New program brings outstanding world-changing leaders to participate in TED Community
Organizers of the TED Conference introduced today the first group of TED Fellows to participate in its new international conference, TEDGlobal. Twenty-five individuals from around the world have been invited to participate in the TED community this year by attending TEDGlobal 2009, to be held in Oxford, UK, July 21-24… In addition to participating as full members of the TEDGlobal Conference audience, each TED Fellow will participate in a two-day pre-conference where they will receive world-class communication training, deliver a short TEDTalk, and collaborate with their peers, among other benefits…
The TED Fellows program helps world-changing innovators from around the globe become part of the TED community and, with its help, amplify the impact of their remarkable projects and activities. Fellows are drawn from many disciplines that reflect the diversity of TED’s members: technology, entertainment, design, the sciences, the humanities, the arts, NGOs, business and more.
.
And, well, among these 25 fortunate people chosen as TED Fellows is me, ajá, very excited. A profound thank you to TED, a project I have loved and followed since I heard about it about four years back, from our first-ever international guest, Stefan Sagmeister. Mmm. What a nice closing of circles. And an opening of new ones too, let’s hope. Let’s make sure.
And the list of 25 fellows after the break.
Una plática sobre nuestros proyectos, y las cosas que nos mueven.
BORDER
Zacatecas 43. Colonia Roma.
www.border.com.mx
Sábado 25 abril. 18 hrs.
These rolls of film were shot by me in 2001, during a six-month trip around the world. I have kept them in a small carton box for more than seven years. The seven-year mark is no coincidence: it is said that it takes precisely that long for a body to completely regenerate. And so, in fact, not a single cell of the now-me was part of the then-me: nor, hence, part of the original experience. (“J’ est une autre.”)
I never forgot that the films were there in their carton box. But nowadays, hard as I try, I find it difficult to remember even one of the actual photographs I might have taken back then. The images themselves–locked up in the undeveloped film–have purposefully been left to weather, time, chance: a process probably more faithful to what happens with the moments themselves; to the memories locked up in our (sometimes humid, sometimes dusty) brain.
So. To go. To click. To age. To fade. To wait. And wait. And wait, and wait until seven years is finally past: yesterday I dropped off the first four films to be developed.
We shall see.
Or not.
(Maybe a double ghost of an almost remembering, like the dream of an I once was.)
