Family Residency Porras and Canseco

Along with little Dante, Daniela Porras and Luis Canseco are two visual artists based in Oaxaca, Mexico, where they also run an afternoon art school for children up to ten years old. An exhibition of Luis’s work is currently on show at the Musee de los Pintores Oaxaquenos. Both Daniela and Luis actively participated and exhibited at the Fiesta del Maiz y Maguey in Oaxaca in November 2012. As family in residence at FoAM Brussels as the EITC project draws to a close, they explore the cultural impact of the meeting of two continents – Europe and the Americas – nowhere more pronounced than in the contrast between the cities of Oaxaca and Brussels, despite the ongoing process of globalisation.

Taking the metaphor of a bridge between Mexico and Europe as a starting point, they aim to link the two high points of their experience in EITC – working in Oaxaca and working in Europe – as inspiration for artworks and site-specific installations with materials that come to hand during their stay in Brussels. For them it is essential that their work expresses lived experiences which emerge from the backgrounds and cultures within which they are rooted, and which focuses on discovering connections and similarities between different cultural worlds that share common ideas and approaches – especially in relation to the current ecological and environmental situation.

The residency takes place in collaboration with nadine, the second Brussels-based organisation involved in the EITC initiative.