Episode 30: Artist Residencies for International Social Change


Posted Date: July 1st, 2021

Episode Description: LAC member Michelle McGowan interviews Francisco Guevara, a visual artist and curator. Guevara specializes in Levinasian ethics applied to the design of cross-cultural artistic projects as well as the analysis of performativity in contemporary art practices. He has over 20 years of experience designing, curating, managing arts projects, and promoting social change. Guevara is co-founder and Co-Executive Director of Arquetopia, a non-profit foundation and transnational artist residency program promoting development and social transformation through educational, artistic, and cultural programming.

Guest Biography

Francisco GuevaraFrancisco Guevara
Co-Executive Director / Co-Director Ejecutivo
Arquetopia, Fundacion para el Desarrollo, Mexico

Francisco Guevara is a visual artist and curator based in Mexico, Peru and Italy. His essays and critical texts focusing on contemporary art practices and the artist residency field have been featured in numerous international publications. As a visual artist, Francisco Guevara investigates the historical construction of the differentiation processes and its relationship with the performativity of identity. Guevara holds a degree in Cooperation and Development in the Fields of education, science and culture from UNED/OEI/CIDEAL, and a postgraduate degree in Cultural Management and Communication from FLACSO. He studied art historiography at the University of New Mexico, focusing on race, gender, and class in the writing of art history. Since 2009, Guevara is co-founder and Co-Executive Director of Arquetopia, a non-profit foundation and transnational artist residency program promoting development and social transformation through educational, artistic, and cultural programs.

Guevara tracing on floor
Guevara tracing “Garden of Earthly Delights” (via)

Project Abstract

What Does the End of the Grand Tour Represent in the Anthropocene Era?

“An uncertain future” is what would closely describe the reality the art world is facing after the events of the year 2020. Around the world, artist residencies have had a prominent role in the production and dissemination of art and artistic ideas, now affected by the restrictions on mobility, limited resources, and forced to rethink their relationship to place and history. As a response to the COVID-19 pandemic, this summer, Arquetopia Foundation organized and hosted “The End of the Grand Tour? Virtual Symposium on Artist Residencies: Future, Place and State” including the perspectives of 18 organizations from five continents. The symposium was highly successful, becoming a transnational dialogue addressing the invention of place, mobility, tourism, and their historical roots, at the intersection of artist residencies. This critical reexamination of the practices of traveling revealed the dark fantasies of destinations and ways in which the Grand Tour still inhabits artist residencies. Discussions about art, deep history, and ethical questions on the relationships between traveling artists, art organizations and local communities generously contributed to the conclusions for the symposium. The work of prominent scholars participating as keynote speakers and moderators, including Kirsten Pai Buick, Sharon Holland, Dipesh Chakrabarty, Emmanuel Ortega, Karim Kattan, and Francisco Guevara provided the framework for the discussions. The proposal is for Francisco Guevara, Co-Executive Director of Arquetopia, to share his conclusions as a conversation considering the juncture between art history, deep history and ethics.

installation view of Guevara's work
Francisco Guevara, “Thirty-Six Tales of Negotiation and Taste,” 2014. (via)

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