Multidisciplinary Artist Mariana Muñoz Gomez on Balancing Art and Life

Hi everyone and welcome back to the Artilogue. Today I'm chatting with Mariana Munoz-Gomez, an artist, writer and curator based in Winnipeg, treaty 1 territory. Their practice explores place, identity and language and how these topics intersect with coloniality, temporality and relation. Mariana's lens-based practice involves a variety of media, including text, screen prints, video, art and photography. They were a curator at Window Winnipeg from 2018 to 2023 and a curator-in-residence at the Winnipeg Art Gallery Kalmyk from 2021 to 2022. Mariana is also the managing co-editor of Carnation Zine, which recently released Volume 3 of the publication themed Fire. Mariana, welcome to the Art-O-Log.

Hello, thanks for reaching out, Madison.

Can you tell me about your art practice?

My overall creative practice. I have my artist statement on the website so people can look there if you want a bit more formal or direct way of learning about my art practice. But I was just thinking that for me overall, it's a way for me to research and process impacts of colonialism and capitalism, especially in contexts connected to my lived experience. So I guess those contexts are like being born in Mexico and living some time in Mexico and then immigrating to Canada with my family. So yeah, I'm generally interested in kind of that hemispheric connection between those two places and in the Americas in general.

I'm interested in learning about colonialism and capitalism all over the place, but I guess I find it easier to learn about the context that I have a connection to and I find that I'm often interested in interpreting those topics through a relational lens, or to put it in other words, I'm interested in how those power structures impact our everyday lives and how we relate to all kinds of beings, so how one person relates to themselves or how we relate to other people, animals and the environment. I guess also just to say, within my creative practice, I have my individual art practice, I have my work with collectives, I have my curatorial practice and I also have a writing practice, so it ends up being a few projects here and there.

How did you come across the concepts of capitalism and colonialism? When were you first made aware of these things?

That's a great question and I think it's something that obviously had impacted my life, probably my whole life basically, I guess. But these kinds of structures that we don't really have a name for or have a way to identify them necessarily At first, it's something that has probably impacted my life like the beginning or an early age. But I actually remember having this moment, I think when I was 16, it was the 200 year anniversary of Mexico's revolution, and I remember having this moment of questioning like oh, like Mexico is celebrating its independence and being like making the connection to Canada Day in Canada and being like Canada's not like celebrating its independence, and that's kind of like where some personal questioning started for me, even though I didn't have like the words like colonialism or capitalism exactly back then, but I think just kind of remaining curious about those kinds of experiences and differences that I had seen or would experience in my life. And then it probably wasn't until, like university that I really had a name for these concepts.

Why have you chosen to work in newer mediums like photography and video, and how does that help better convey your intentions as opposed to traditional mediums?

I feel like I'm not tied to a particular medium, but I definitely think of myself as, like, a lens-based artist. So often I find I don't really know where an idea for a project starts. So often I find I don't really know where an idea for a project starts, but as the project or idea develops, the medium or the way I want to express it kind of reveals itself too, and I used to do more printmaking and I want to get back into it too. But generally, yeah, I'm interested in a lens-based approach and for me that means things like photography and video. But I think it's a more open idea for myself as well.

Like I have a book that I made a couple years ago called Mapping Elsewhere, and I think of that book as part of my lens-based practice, even though it has text and illustration and there's no like photographic reproductions, but almost all of the illustrations are of photographs and that project actually started out through just like personal engagement, looking back through personal photographs, and the text itself kind of engages with this concept. Concept I have of photography that I connect to language as well, which is that photography and language act for me as conduits to memory and they each hold potentials as vehicles to another time, place and emotion. So in this book, the photographs which are illustrations in the book act as kind of these portals to other times, places and emotions, even though I don't describe it that way explicitly. And yeah, I just am pretty hooked, like on photography and a lens-based kind of approach.

In this way and also in some of my earlier work with printmaking where I was using like a photographic method of printmaking, and also some earlier photography work, I was interested in exploring the construction of a photograph, the construction of an image and everything that comes with that, like the construction of an identity or the construction of a narrative. I'm also open to other mediums and I actually miss making things with my hands. So I would like to get back into painting. I took a couple of painting classes in university and I'm curious about ceramics as well, but yeah, it kind it ends up depending on the project.

You're also a curator. Can you tell me more about what a curator does?

Sure so in my experience, which has been like I haven't worked with the museum, for example, but I've worked with independent curatorial collectives or with smaller artist-run centers and maybe with one or two like larger institutions. In my experience, the curator is a person who organizes an exhibition and conceptualizes an exhibition. So they might start by choosing a theme and finding artists and artworks to communicate that theme, or they might start with the artist or the artwork and build a theme around that, build an exhibition around that, and basically the way I see it is they interpret the artwork to explain the theme that they're interested in and to communicate it.

What are some of your favorite projects that you've worked on as a curator Well, as a curator.

I think, well, yeah, my project at the Winnipeg Art Gallery that I did a couple years ago is actually a curatorial residency from 21 to 2022. And that was an exhibition themed on embodied knowledge. And I guess embodied knowledge was a topic that I had been interested in getting into for a while and it seemed like a good time to dive deeper into it. So, with transmissions, the exhibition, oh yeah, here we go.

The three kind of streams of this topic of embodied knowledge that I ended up working with for the exhibition was the recognition of knowledge that we have within ourselves, was the recognition of knowledge that we have within ourselves, knowledge by encounter and relation, and the transference of embodied knowledge intergenerationally and within community. And I definitely want to keep doing more projects with that theme. I think it's just exciting for me because I have recognized over the years how much I've learned from not only my own personal experiences but from friends and community, and often I find that a lot of the embodied knowledge that they have or that we have are things that aren't really taught in other ways or that are difficult to teach in another way. So, yeah, I just think I'm kind of interested in that topic of embodied knowledge.

Yeah, what was the process like working as a curator for a larger institution like the WAG?

Yeah. So that was like kind of unique experience because with the residency I was kind of like a freelance curator but I had this project with the WAG so I had like production support from the WAG but it was pretty open to like what I wanted to do. With that experience I got to do a lot of like self-directed research, which is really great. So the way that I kind of did that was I was researching the WAG's collection, I was researching artists, I was was also reading, especially once I got kind of decided on the topic, I was making reading part of my daily practice, which was really great for me. I was also very different from my previous experience with smaller galleries or with independent collectives. I really appreciated the opportunity with the WAD, but I also really appreciate the more like independent projects, just because there's more freedom to how I want to navigate things or other collective as a collective, how we decide how to navigate things.

Yeah, when you were going through the WAGs collection, did any pieces jump out to you that made you think I have to have this in transmissions? Did any pieces jump out to you that made you think I have to?

have this in transmissions. That opens up a very important and relevant topic, I think, which the situation isn't unique to the WAG at all, but once I started researching the collection, I found that it was very limited in terms of BIPOC artists and representation of BIPOC artists. So they have a pretty big collection of Inuit art. That's kind of what the WAG is known for. The collection of Indigenous artists that I found, other than Inuit artists, was not as big, and then it was really a struggle to find other Black or racialized artists in the collection. So that part was really challenging because I did want to work with some pieces from the collection, but I also knew that I could invite other artists in. So having that kind of financial support to be able to invite other artists in was really great as well. I think a lot of institutions are kind of dealing with recognizing those gaps in their collections right now. Not a unique phenomenon, for sure.

For sure what's a day in your life like as a freelance curator, writer, artist, etc.

Yeah, so it's actually a lot of admin work. Sometimes you're like they don't really tell you that in art school, or at least that's how it's turned out for me. I guess some people live the dream like painting all day, which is great, but for some reason I find myself tied up in administrative work, like looking for opportunities or applying for opportunities or pitching ideas. So I end up spending a lot of time on the computer typing, and I think that's also part of why I want to go back to like doing stuff with my hands. I like want a bit of a break from the computer stuff with my hands. I like want a bit of a break from the computer and I feel like maybe it would be easier for me to have like focus on that studio time in my head, separating, you know, computer space from like creative space, whereas with photo and video projects, like it's also on the computer.

Yeah, so for me it ends up being a lot on the computer, but it is really nice when I make something with my hands or if I do a print making project, or also part of my practice is going to exhibitions and going to movies. There's like a pro and a con, I guess, in terms of like activities like that can be just for entertainment, but a lot of the times it ends up being kind of like research for me as well. So work and pleasure get mixed a lot of the time.

How does being an artist impact your curatorial process?

So I was an artist. I was practicing as an artist before I started practicing as a curator. I was wanting to connect these ideas that were percolating in my head with other artists that I was learning about or was interested in, and I feel like having that experience as an artist and getting to know other artists as an artist definitely impacted my curatorial practice or I hope that it does. I hope what becomes across when I work with artists yeah, I feel like maybe just having a bit more hands-on experience on, like, how they might work or what they might be dealing with like in the background while they're working on a project Just having that experience as an artist expressing this idea kind of impacts how I interpret art curatorially as well.

What do you think are the responsibilities of a curator?

Somewhere in the root of the word curating there is a connotation or a definition at the root of like caring so caring for an artwork or caring for an object and I feel like for me it's also important to care for the artist and especially, I guess, having that experience as an artist, I want to make sure I'm watching over them.

So I find that can be a little easier when it's like an independent project or with an independent collective, like I curated with Window Winnipeg up until last year, actually, I guess 2023 and yeah, just being a independent collective, we were able to make decisions about how we wanted to work and, you know, like less bureaucratic restrictions on like this is like the set way to do things and we have to do things this way. So I definitely see the role of the curator, especially with larger institutions, to kind of be a liaison in between the institution and the artist, and for me, a priority is looking out for the artist, just keeping that kind of care in mind, and the fun part is also exploring different ways to communicate ideas.

You're also an editor of Carnationzine. Can you tell me more about how this project came about?

A lot of the collective work that I've done has come about just with friends connections with friends or sometimes I feel like, also connections with people of the world.

We wanted to deepen a relationship and an art collective was a great way to kind of the world.

We wanted to deepen a relationship and an art collective was a great way to kind of start that. With Carnation Zine, we started our project in 2018 and it just came up as an idea I wanted to do. I wanted to have like a bite-off zine and I just reached out to a couple of friends Christina and Bajar and Luther. I knew Christina had done work with Beans before and I just reached out to a couple of friends Christina and Bajar and Luther I knew Christina had done work with Beans before and we thought of Luther too, because he had done he had initiated his own publication called Public Parking as well. So we all had kind of this connection to publications and independent publications and we all have our own work as well, demanding applications, and we all have our own work just as well. So having our experience as artists, also as editors, I feel like, has impacted the publication in the same way, I feel like my experience as an artist has impacted my curatorial work.

And you just published volume three in September. Can you tell me a bit more about this publication?

Yeah, so Carnation is a theme that publishes art and writing by BIPOC Black, indigenous and people of colour and our general kind of overarching theme or mandate maybe is addressing diaspora and displacement. For Volume 3, we had the more specific theme of fire. So we worked with Wes Harmon on that and it was really great bringing in the guest editor, just because of Wes's own experience as an artist and everything and also their own zine experience and they also do like illustrations. So, yeah, just kind of bringing in a different perspective in that way.

With volume three, the theme being fire, with our call for submissions, we put out a little prompt to get some ideas going and kind of given the idea of the direction we wanted the publication to go in. So we were definitely thinking of fire with themes related to resistance. For instance, in our Help for Submissions we talk about action and passion in the face of destruction and injustice. Fire is an anger. We were interested in exploring like different emotions that might be related with fire. Fire is an escaping war. We were also thinking about smoke and also thinking about fire in its natural form, kind of symbolizing the beginning and the end and also blurring the distinction between these stages. Yeah, so in the end, I guess. To put it briefly, fire. Volume 3 includes artwork and writing around themes of destruction, passion, ritual resistance and transformation.

For people who are unfamiliar with the concept of a zine, can you tell us a bit more about what it is? Sure?

So zines are basically an independent publication. Historically they have been usually like. The traditional format is like a normal size computer paper in wrapped by 11, folded in half and with staple binding. So you basically like making your own bug and the I guess like the zine tradition has been like making photocopies so you can make reproduction super cheap and that way you can distribute it for free or for very cheap. So it's a medium that is like very accessible and a lot of people do like zine swaps as well. So I think in the tradition of zines there's also this ethos of trading for other publication. It definitely comes from like a political tradition, like a dissident tradition of publishing information. So there's like Riot Grrrl zines, feminist zines and Black Power Muslims. There's all kinds of dissident voices that are in the roots of zine making.

How do you select what goes into Carnation?

It's really hard. We have actually been very fortunate to have a lot of interest in the zine. We've just published volume three. We publish very sporadically, just like every three years I think is our track record, and with the last couple because we've gotten grant funding, we were able to offer contributor fees. So that definitely helped spark interest. And we've gotten hundreds of submissions for our call for submissions. So it's really hard to decide what to put in the zine. For instance, with volume three we ended up with 34 contributors out of hundreds of submissions, so it was definitely very hard to make a decision. We had Wes Farman as a guest editor on volume three. We collect the submissions, we get together and, having previously looked over everything individually, we get together to discuss each submission one by one and both from there make decisions about where we want the publication to go in terms of connections we see between submissions or new ideas maybe that we hadn't thought of for the theme coming through in the submissions.

How do you balance being a writer, an artist and a curator and a zine maker and all the other hats that you wear?

Yeah, well, I am a bit of a workaholic, which I think is a trend in the art. There's always different projects going on, and I think part of it too is just being interested in a lot of things. So it is kind of hard to balance. I've been trying to do a better job of like scheduling my time intentionally, for example, like breaking it down to I want to focus on my writing practice X number of hours a week or among and trying to balance the administrative side too. So it's definitely hard, but it's also kind of nice that, for me at least, all these kind of different facets of my practice inform each other. So even though I may be going to an exhibition, say, to potentially write about it, it's also curatorial for research for me, and it's also research that can go towards my individual practice. So yeah, they also end up kind of blending a lot of the time.

What projects are you looking forward to? Oh well, right now.

I actually have an exhibition coming up next year that I'm very excited about with Grant Gallery, so I'm going to be exhibiting a body of work called Abolar Entre Rocas, which is a body of work that I started exhibiting in 2021. And I'm also very excited about it because I guess I only exhibited it. This will be my third time as a solo exhibition and each time I've been interested in doing some like additional programming to make it more relational as well, like for the first one at Blankers, which is now Seedcap Center for Cultural and Artistic Practices. For the first exhibition, or the first iteration of the exhibition, I also held a workshop about relationship to a place, and I wanted to do that because the artwork itself is about relationship to place and, yeah, it just bringing in like a relational aspect was really important to me so I can connect with people about it and also so it's not just like art on the wall. I just like engaging a bit more when I can or prompting some engagement when I can.

So that was kind of the first relational iteration that went with the exhibition. And then this year I had an exhibition with Snap in Edmonton and we partnered with Latitude 53 to host a Latinx artist gathering For this iteration with Brent. It will kind of depend on grants and stuff, but I'm hoping to do some kind of gathering or workshop as well. I'm always excited in diving into more research, so I'm hoping for some research grant results in the new year as well.

What advice would you have for someone looking to become a curator?

Oh, I think, looking to become a curator. I think in my case I kind of got into it because of people trusting in me and reaching out to me with opportunities at first, which I really, really appreciate. And I guess the way that I got into it was through participating in the artistic community, so volunteering or volunteering on boards and committees and getting to know people that way. So I think that is definitely very helpful for anyone who wants to get more involved in the arts whether it's curating or anything else is participating, and that can also be through taking workshops and classes and building relationships. That way, getting excited about the artist or the research whichever one kind of comes first to prompt your idea for the exhibition, making sure it's something you're really interested in, and that will help just translate more passion, I think, and interest in the end result.

And yeah, I think also just keeping in mind that you can get creative if you don't have a space to exhibit in, for example, collective Patterns or Patterns Collectives. Also from Winnipeg, with their curatorial collective of Shanila Voodoo, chikwud Duban Makaigwe and Mahalik Cubs. I haven't been online for a while so I actually don't know if they're still active, but they were doing curatorial projects even though they didn't have an exhibition space, so they did some online stuff and they did some in-person stuff, like through partnerships, as well. So, yeah, I think, just keeping in mind, that you can get creative even if you are like tied to a gallery, for example.

That's good advice. Thank you so much, Mariana. Thank you so much for being on the Art of Life today.

This has been a great conversation Great, thank you so much. Thanks for your questions. I think, yeah, there's always a lot where you can see. So I think if anyone's listening and is interested in connecting and chatting, I'll try my best to respond. It's always great to talk about these things. I really appreciate it, madison.