Lira Diana
Day 1, Monday 12.9_Destination:
link: Fernando Palma in conversation with Malacchi Farrell
In the olden days, the Chapultepec hill was entirely surrounded by water, it was a tiny island in the middle of lake Meztliapan or “Lake of the moon.” The lake used to occupy a surface larger than present day Mexico City. Today the remaining water at Chapultepec is but a foul soup of detritus and bacteria. Chapultepec is said to have been inhabited for at least 3000 years. The Mexica, founders of Mexico-Tenochtitlan–the ruins upon which present Mexico grew–were still homeless more than half a millennium ago and eventually were allowed by the Tepanecah–then owners of the hill–to inhabit the lake’s shores which were regarded as useless for agriculture. But, to the Mexica, this was a true gift, as the springs provided them with drinking water. Soon they began an incipient agriculture system and, once established at Mexico–Tenochtitlan under the rule of Moctezuma Ilhuicamina, the Mexica transformed Chapultepec into a botanical garden.
As we all know, the supremacy of the Mexica, better known today as Aztecs, was short lived. I personally lament this. With the arrival of Christianity, violence and money, the destruction of a way of life inexorably began –a destruction that still has no foreseeable end. The lake is long gone, replaced by an ever growing monster city swallowing water, land, people and hills, replacing it all with banks, drugs, corruption and violence.
Day 6, Saturday 17.9_Presentation_CounterSpace Zürich
Simulation “Destino Final” with Juan Mauricio Schmid Bello
object & sound installation inside & outside CounterSpace
