MEXICO PRESENTS A SPIRITUAL INVOCATION AT THE 61ST VENICE BIENNALE

The Mexican Pavilion presents Invisible Acts to Sustain the Universe at the 61st Venice Biennale, by the collective RojoNegro —made up of María Sosa and Noé Martínez. In response to the saturation and immediacy of contemporary life, the exhibition, curated by Jessica Berlanga, opens a space for contemplation that weaves together memory and ritual technologies from a decolonial perspective. Through a sensory experience, the work summons an attentive form of listening in which body, matter, and environment are recognized as bearers of knowledge, enabling other ways of perceiving and relating to the world.

Working from a practice that integrates installation, performance, and sound, RojoNegro addresses the lasting effects of colonial processes on bodies, territories, and present-day cosmogonies. The exhibition unfolds as a spiritual invocation in which the intelligence of materials —salt, clay, and tobacco— emerges through deep observation. This framework is accompanied by an audiovisual record in which breath sets the pulse of the experience, interweaving with sounds of the earth to generate an active archival presence and an expanded form of listening.

Inside the pavilion, a line of salt shaped like a vírgula —a Mesoamerican symbol for speech and conversation— guides the visitor through an environment where breath marks the rhythm of the work. Resting upon it are vessels shaped like birds, beings that symbolically connect the Americas. The mineral absorbs humidity and takes on a sheen reminiscent of sweat; upon contact, the ceramic erodes, a reminder that matter, too, transforms and holds memory. Shared between organism and territory, the salt marks a time of pause and care.

Another axis of the installation is the presence of the tobacco plant, associated with the protection of emotional states and the induction of altered states of consciousness, whose medicinal and purifying uses are recorded in the Florentine Codex. The tonalities of the works evoke water deities such as Ixchel and Huixtocíhuatl, invoking cycles of gestation, protection, and renewal, in which water, clay, and salt act as elements in dialogue.

As part of the project, a catalogue will be published this July, conceived as a space for documentation and reflection around Invisible Acts to Sustain the Universe. The publication brings together the working processes of the RojoNegro collective, along with texts by various authors who critically accompany the work and its development, expanding on the conceptual threads that run through the project.