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colectivo amasijo: offering

Event Details

DATE: March 21, 2025 TIME: 2 PM - 4 PM

LOCATION: The Brick, 518 N Western Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90004

Registration

TICKET PRICE: Registration not yet open

colectivo amasijo, Puntos cardinales, Biodiversity game by Martina Manterola, 2022. Courtesy of the artists.

POSTPONED: This program has been postponed to March 21, 2025. Stay tuned for a link to register. 

Join us at The Brick for an afternoon gathering with colectivo amasijo, including a procession and communal meal to root us to the specific earth underneath the East Hollywood concrete. This action from the Mexico City-based collective seeks to recreate moments when the land was common, when paths and biodiversity were sown. Their research into the history and use of the East Hollywood watershed revealed a time when the land was not fragmented but rather, the vital rhythms of the territory were recognized by its inhabitants who practiced acts of reciprocity with the land. The artists ask: How do we reweave ourselves with the territory? How do we make seeds trust that human hands will sow them again? What are the technologies that we must (re)create where our reproduction of life is interconnected to the forests, the pastures, and the wetlands? 

From these questions, colectivo will guide a pilgrimage from the neighboring streets of Western Avenue and into Life on Earth, making offerings to each work in the exhibition. In agriculture, scattering (rather than sowing/planting) allows seeds to germinate and grow wherever they fall by chance; for colectivo, this offers a powerful metaphor for the movement of living things and ideas to take hold throughout communal land. The procession will culminate with an offering of endemic foods recently harvested by the artists during their agricultural journey in the Yucatán and La Milpa, La Escuela (the site of their field work in a unique ecosystem in the mountainous outskirts of Mexico City). As the artists describe, the offering draws from the women, the harvest, the rituals and the technology of these lands—from seeds to pinoles to moles, from the forest, the jungle, the desert and the sea—bringing a harvest of moving ecosystems, knit into food for us to sow and share.

About the Artist

colectivo amasijo
colectivo amasijo is a group of women from different parts of Mexico (Veracruz, Oaxaca, State of Mexico, and Mexico City) united in their desire to actively reflect on the origin and diversity of our food. The collective was born in 2019 and ever since, has been providing a platform for...
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About ECOTONES

This event is part of ECOTONES, a collaborative programming series presented on the occasion of the exhibition Life on Earth: Art & Ecofeminism at The Brick. Four public programs will be led by an artist or artist-collective to explore local agriculture, foraging, food and herbalism as ritual, and biodiversity.

Through this collaboration, these two L.A.-based art organizations are modeling an ecofeminist ethos by sharing authorship, and collectively generating materials and resources. Taking place in conjunction with the Getty Foundation’s ambitious initiative PST ART: Art & Science Collide, ECOTONES will be part of a region-spanning cultural moment, reaching vast audiences interested in the intersection of art, food, feminism, and sustainability.

Support for this program series is provided by Kim and Keith Allen-Niesen, The Maurice Marciano Family Foundation, and Olivia Marciano.

About The Brick

Founded in 2005 as LAXART, The Brick is a nonprofit visual art space that promotes developments in contemporary culture through exhibitions, publications, and public programs. A platform for emerging and under-recognized talent, its mission encompasses thematic exhibitions that engage with the present moment. We believe that contemporary art is a means of understanding key issues of our time with all their inherent contradictions. Contemporary art assumes many forms. Rather than provide answers, it raises questions. Through a range of offerings, we contextualize contemporary art both socially and art historically. Our programs are free and designed to be accessible to the general public.

Credits

Active Cultures’ programs this year are made possible through the generous support of its Board of Directors; the Gatherers Annual Fund; the Los Angeles Visual Arts (LAVA) Coalition; the Los Angeles County Department of Arts and Culture as part of Creative Recovery LA, an initiative funded by the American Rescue Plan; the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors through the Department of Arts and Culture; and the California Arts Council.