MEXICO CULTURAL EXCHANGE

This digital project is meant to document many of the historical connections between London, Ontario, and Mexico. One of the earliest contemporary connection was when  Duncan deKergomeaux travelled to San Miguel in 1958 on a Canada Council grant. ECH co-founders Ron Benner & Jamelie Hassan have had, over the years different connections with Mexico, as have many cultural workers & activists base in London. One exchange was with three artists in Merida, Mexico. Ron & Jamelie did solo exhibitions in Merida. In the early 1980's, Jamelie frequently visited the Casa de Montejo - while it was still in the hands of the family & was given permission to do some watercolours inside the house. Most recently Jamelie and Ron were based in Oaxaca, Mexico in 2012 and 2013 when they did their first exhibition together. 

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Oaxaca, Mexico

Photo credit for all the above photos: Marnie Fleming

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​A Garden of Resistance

A Garden of Resistance

Read a text by Marnie Fleming that she wrote in 2015 for our visitors to Oaxaca which describes the history and developments of Jardin Etnobotánico de Oaxaca. It is included with the watercolours from Jamelie Hassan and Ron Benner's The World is a Garden. the watercolours are the result of a 3-month residency/fellowship at the Jardin Etnobotánico de Oaxaca. Working in this place over time, each of the artists was able to become familiar with the gardeners themselves and exchange ideas about the principals that ran parallel to their own interests, sensibilities and beliefs.

A Garden of Resistance

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Interncambio/exchange

Interncambio/exchange

Canadian curator Bob McKaskell and Oaxacan artist Lissette Jiménez Díaz​ collaborate on a intercambio/exchange. 
Bob McKaskell was known across Canada as a leading art historian and curator. He first visited Oaxaca in early 1993 and eventually made it his second home starting in 2012.  In 2019, he set out to restore a rarely-used room in his Oaxacan apartment, with the intent of turning it into a contemporary gallery space for emerging artists. There was never any doubt that Lissette would be his first commission. Bob intended to have her installation work in his new space for one year. He was making plans to commission six Oaxacan artists altogether, over as many years.

INtercambio/exchange

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Tribute to Francisco Toledo

Photo by Marnie Fleming

Paulina in Oaxaca provided the following update regarding this poster of Toledo produced by the graphics collective Gran OM. Sensational posters! Here is the catalogue.
 
“OM is a 38 year old artist who wanted to denounce injustices to his compatriots and wanted to make these injustices visible beyond protest marches. What began as an intuitive exercise that led him from the audiovisual world to the graphics of poster design, is today Gran OM, a visual studio that emerged in 2006 that has focused its work on supporting social struggles through graphics. With the aim that graphic production would be greater and more effective when it comes to causing an impact on Mexican and Latin American society, Gran OM became a collective initiative in which Kloer currently participates, which operates in the State of Mexico.  , Chauiztle, who works from Puebla, and Boer, Richard and OM, whose center of action is between Oaxaca and Mexico City."

Ron Benner, enawendewin/relationships: in memory of Francisco Toledo.

Work by Ron Benner as a tribute to Francisco Toledo. The work showed at Artspace in Peterborough. It was a group exhibition curated by William Kingfisher. Title of exhibition: enawendewin/relationships. Nov. 1 - Dec. 14, 2019.  Ron Benner also did a corn roast. The exhibition included work by Anong Megwans Beam, Lisa Myers, David Deleary and Jennifer Cole and a  performance by Kingfisher and gardens of First Nations plants throughout the city.

The title of the work was enawendewin/relationships: in memory of Francisco Toledo. The work consisted of photographs Ron took of the Ethnobotanical Garden of Oaxaca in 2012 with photos of the Guardian newspaper's obituary of Toledo. Included in front of the images on a plinth is the limited edition box set (10) of a selection of watercolours we did in the Ethnobotanical Garden produced in 2012 for the exhibition The World Is A Garden: Ron Benner and Jamelie Hassan, 2013 at the Biblioteca Henestrosa. Three box sets were donated to the Biblioteca Henestrosa, Biblioteca Jardin Etnobotanico and Biblioteca Grafica(Toledo's family home).

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