Portrait of a Nation

Landscape painting in Mexico often acted as a mechanism for colonial subjugation, perpetuating Eurocentric artistic and historical values. José María Velasco is considered one of the most influential artists who made Mexican geography a symbol of national identity through his landscape paintings. The premise in Velasco’s pastoral painting is a narrative of magnificence and opulence, highlighting the splendours of the imperial court and ethnic harmony in the newly established colonial state, meanwhile concealing Indigenous genocide and colonial violence.

By rephotographing Velasco’s landscape paintings with a surveillance camera and re-staging them with the collaboration of the Indigenous P’urhépecha in Mexico, the installation produces depictions of landscape inaccessible to ordinary gaze, situating video recording and landscape painting as technologies of violence. This video piece addresses the complexities of the political geography of race in Mexico, rendering landscape painting and video technologies as surveillance assemblages.

Credits

Re-photography by Oswaldo Toledano
Post-production supervising by Oswaldo Toledano
Sound design by Christian Olsen

Production Support

This video piece was produced with support from MITACS residency
El Colegio De Michoacán
Centro de Estudios en Geografia Humana
Mexico
2015 – 2018
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Financial Support

MEES
Ministère de l’Éducation et de l’Enseignement Supérieur
Gouvernement du Québec
Canada

Concordia University
Faculty of Fine Arts
Canada

MERST
Ministère de l’Enseignement supérieur, Recherche, Science et Technologie
Gouvernement du Québec
Canada

MITACS Globalink Research Award
Canada

Talks

Landscapes and Identities
FOFA Gallery
2021
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Exhibitions | Screenings

FOFA Gallery 2021
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FRACTO Experimental Film Encounter 2020
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Rencontres Internationales Traverse 2020
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Les Inattendus Film Festival 2020
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Kasseler Dokfest 2019
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Antimatter Media Art Festival 2019
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Festival Internacional Cine Experimental Dobra 2019
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Transient Visions: Festival of the Moving Image 2019
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Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery 2019
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Festival International du Film sur l’Art FIFA 2019
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victor@victor-arroyo.com