Alejandra Riera: Garden of Mixtures: Attempts to Make Place, 1995 -…

< Garden of Mixtures: Attempts to Make Place, 1995 -… > is an exhibition devoted to the work of Alejandra Riera and the poetic means she employs to make space, to make room. The exhibition begins with a recurring image in her practice: a collective canvas or portrait, which for this occasion takes the form of a garden in movement.

From the beginning, the creative approach to color and the weaving and writing of plants allows the exhibition’s slow temporality and collaborative process to unfold. Since 2017, at the artist’s behest, the heart of the exhibition – its breathing space and that which will live on afterwards – is located in two of the museum garden’s seven flowerbeds, with the aim of enriching their impoverished soil and transforming them collectively. The contact with the earth and the living entities that inhabit it takes place through a study of the site, its history and geography. Gradually, the soil is revitalized, while those who tend to the garden and/or use it as a public space come together and reaffirm its status as both a meeting place and an ecological life-force. The collective formed through this experience, also called Garden of Mixtures, testifies to a shared reflection and action, and, in so doing, discovers its aptitude to work together.