JULIA MENSCH
1980, Buenos Aires. AR/CH
Vive en Berlín y Buenos Aires / Lives in Berlin and Buenos Aires.
Currently PhD Candidate at Bauhaus-Universität, Weimar/DE
Part of the research project "Plants_Intelligence. Learning Like a Plant", Institute Art Gender Nature IAGN, FHNW Academy of Art and Design, Basel/CH
ESE AJENO SUR*
Field Research in the Capitalocene
In collaboration with Naomi Hennig. sign, CIAT - Contemporary Institute for Art & Though, Berlin, 2022 
Ese ajeno sur*
Video Essay, 35’02’’, 2018-2022
https://vimeo.com/734817500
https://vimeo.com/734817500
*After Ramon Minieri.
Faust, the genious project-maker and engineer looks back at the work of his life-time: prospering cultural
landscapes, newly created lands, modern harbours and a merchant fleet carrying goods from far-away continents. Faust is the logistics-king of international free trade, with Mephisto as his chief-ideologue and henchman. Only a nameless traveller and a friendly old couple, Philemon and Baucis, appear as their adversaries, who quickly fall prey to the capitalist turnover.
landscapes, newly created lands, modern harbours and a merchant fleet carrying goods from far-away continents. Faust is the logistics-king of international free trade, with Mephisto as his chief-ideologue and henchman. Only a nameless traveller and a friendly old couple, Philemon and Baucis, appear as their adversaries, who quickly fall prey to the capitalist turnover.
How could Faust, in his final incarnation as land-developer, be understood today, how can his success, his burning ambition, his blindness and subsequent death be re-interpreted ? Marshal Berman's interpretation of Faust reveals a reading of Faust's success and failure as a metaphor for a (moral) crisis of capitalist modernity.
In cross-referencing Faust with the on-going violent repression of indigenous land claims in Patagonia, we
look to the far-away and yet so near geographies of this faustian relation to nature, and plea for those who
resist, and who have resisted through history.
The video work Ese Ajeno Sur (2018-2022) is a reflection on the deaths of activists like Santiago Maldonado, Rafael Nahuel, or Elias Garay, who died in the course of land conflicts in Patagonia. How they can be named and remembered? How can this Faustian megalomania be translated into a form of critique that targets extractivism, dispossession, and the alliance of state institutions with the interests of latifundistas and international corporations like Benetton?
And what does all this have to do with us?
Text by Naomi Hennig / Photos by Sim & Nic
Field Research in the Capitalocene
Faust, Mapuches, Santiago Maldonado and the occupied land
Faust, Mapuches, Santiago Maldonado and the occupied land
In collaboration with Naomi Hennig
Project space festival, Uqbar Berlin/DE 2018
In cross-referencing Faust with the on-going violent repression of indigenous land claims in Patagonia, we look to the far-away and yet so near geographies of this faustian relation to nature, and plea for those who resist, and who have resisted through history. We ask: what does the death of those nameless travellers mean for us here and now, how can they be called and recalled by their names, and how could the laments for Philemon and Baucis be translated into a critique of an unlimited „accumulation by dispossession“? How could Faust, in his final incarnation as land-developer, be understood today, how can his success, his burning ambition, his blindness and subsequent death be re-interpreted in the light of the on-going ecocide and the death toll of the extractivist and neo-colonial frontier?
Text by Naomi Hennig
Bibliothek APP’N’CELL NOW, Kunsthalle Appenzell/CH, 2020
Bibliothek Photograph und Text (Inkjet-print, 40 x 60 cm and notebook on shelf,
10,5 x 29,7 cm, 28 pages), 2015-2019
Elisabeth Pletscher (1908 - 2003) was a laboratory assistant and an activist for women’s voting rights. She gave her first political speech about women’s voting rights in 1959 and she voted for first time in Trogen in 1990. Her photo albums and personal papers are today part of the Canton’s Archive. In one of the boxes with the sign “Lektüren” there are seven notebooks where Elisabeth wrote the name of all the books she read from 1927 to 2003, with a description about each of them.
Bibliothek is composed by two parts: a photograph and a booklet with a list I created with the names of all the books which Elisabeth mentioned, organised by year and decade.
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La vida en rojo
EAC, Montevideo/UY 2018
Publicación con el ensayo de Ana Sol Alderete:
Todas las cámaras se fabricaron para fotografiar la Plaza Roja
La vida en rojo (Life in Red) Long term project, 2008-in progress A few years ago my grandparent’s TV started to not function so well.
The variations of colours of the TV screen were transformed into
different red and magenta tones. Not green or blue, but red.
When we told them that the TV was not working well, they didn’t
agree; for them it was still perfectly functioning. This anecdote
gave the name to Life in Red, a long term project, which takes as
starting point the private and political life of my grandparents – both
convinced communists in Argentina, a country where Socialism
has never released as a system, but as utopia remained. An artistic
investigation into the history of Communism in the 20th century, the
use of personal documents to reflect on history and the change of
representation of images in different times and contexts.
Until now the project had several stages, which brought me to
different geographies and contexts. It arose from the need to
understand my own inheritance and the way my parents and
grandparents dealt with this history, in order to build my own
generational tools to act in the present. La vida en rojo
EAC, Montevideo/UY 2018
Todas las cámaras se fabricaron para fotografiar la Plaza Roja
The variations of colours of the TV screen were transformed into
different red and magenta tones. Not green or blue, but red.
When we told them that the TV was not working well, they didn’t
agree; for them it was still perfectly functioning. This anecdote
gave the name to Life in Red, a long term project, which takes as
starting point the private and political life of my grandparents – both
convinced communists in Argentina, a country where Socialism
has never released as a system, but as utopia remained. An artistic
investigation into the history of Communism in the 20th century, the
use of personal documents to reflect on history and the change of
representation of images in different times and contexts.
Until now the project had several stages, which brought me to
different geographies and contexts. It arose from the need to
understand my own inheritance and the way my parents and
grandparents dealt with this history, in order to build my own
generational tools to act in the present.
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Curated by Claudia Spinelli, Kunstraum Baden/CH 2019
Publication with an essay by Paz Guevara
Journeys of Internationalism: Turns and New Episodes
Seit 2008 arbeitet Julia Mensch an ihrem Langzeitprojekt «La vida en
rojo - Das Leben in Rot». Dieses nimmt das private und politische Leben
von Isabel und Rafael zum Ausgangspunkt einer mit künstlerischen Mitteln
geführten Untersuchung der Geschichte der Kommunismus im 20.
Jahrhundert. Aus Schweizer Perspektive ist «La vida en rojo» auch
deshalb bemerkenswert, weil es um eine Migrationsgeschichte aus dem
Rückblick geht. Es bringt den Auswanderungskontinent Europa ins
Bewusstsein – bis Mitte des vergangenen Jahrhunderts die vorherrschende
globale Migrationsbewegung. Im Zentrum des jüngsten, der Grossmutter
Isabel gewidmeten Projektkapitels «La Balada Tropical» drängen
feministische Fragestellungen in den Fokus. Im Nachdenken über Kuba und
zwei Aktivistinnen, die während der Revolutionszeit sehr bedeutsam
waren, heute aber von der offiziellen kubanischen Geschichtsschreibung
unterschlagen werden, formuliert die Künstlerin die Frage, ob der
Sozialismus erfolgreicher gewesen wäre, hätten ihn Frauen in die
Realität umgesetzt. Das sind legitime Gedanken. Formuliert von einer
jungen Frau, die dabei ist, dieser Geschichte ihr eigenes Kapitel
hinzuzufügen. Daraus kann sie, können wir viel lernen.
Text by Claudia Spinelli
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Balada Tropical
Balada Tropical (Tropische Ballade)
Part of La vida en rojo. Installation, Inkjet-prints, 2019
In 1961 my grandmother traveled to Cuba as part of a delegation
of Argentinean workers. During the trip, she met Che Guevara,
visited cities and the country side. She didn’t take any photos, but
she wrote a letter to my grandfather Rafael, describing the paradise
she was seeing, the concretisation of the dream called revolution.
Balada tropical re-conceptualises and re-writes the trip of Isabel to
Cuba in 1961, taking as starting point her letter in relation with cuban
literature, my own research at the island and interviews with Cuban
women who are part of the so called generation of grandkids of the
revolution.
What is left now of this socialist paradise that my grandmother once
visited? Was it a paradise back then? Why is the representation of the
revolution mainly male? Why are female figures who where part of the
guerrilla, like Haydeé Santamaria and Celia Sanchez, not part of the
official discurse? How would the revolution be if they would not have
passed away in the 80ties? What politics would be like, if it would be
built on the rules and affections by women and the so called new
genders?
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La vida en rojo
Centro Cultural Recoleta, sala C, Buenos Aires/AR 2016
Considero que lo biográfico es político.
Hace
unos años la televisión de mis abuelos empezó a funcionar mal. Los
colores de la pantalla se transformaron en una variación de rojos y
magentas. No azul o verde, sino rojo. Cuando les dijimos que el aparato
no funcionaba bien, Rafael e Isabel no estuvieron de acuerdo, para ellos
funcionaba perfectamente. Esta anécdota dio el nombre a La vida en
rojo, proyecto iniciado en 2008, que tiene como punto de partida la vida
privada y política de mi familia. Una investigación artística sobre la
historia del comunismo en el siglo XX, el uso de documentos personales
para reflexionar sobre la historia y el presente, y el cambio de
representación de las imágenes y las palabras en diferentes tiempos y
contextos.
Hasta ahora el proyecto contó con varias etapas, que me llevaron hacia diferentes geografías (Argentina, ex República Democrática Alemana, Ucrania), con la intención de investigar sus contextos actuales y hacer visibles las marcas que el sistema y doctrina socialista dejaron en ellos. La vida en rojo nace de la necesidad de entender mi herencia familiar, para cuestionarla y tomar de ella lo que me sirva para construir mis propias herramientas generacionales y accionar en el presente.
La muestra plantea una instalación donde por primera vez dialogan en un mismo espacio expositivo diferentes obras del proyecto La vida en rojo. Una proyección de diapositivas sincronizadas de 1973 y 2008/2014 de la ex RDA (El viaje de Rafael); una crónica de viaje a Salashi, actual Ucrania; un video que registra una conversación con tres preguntas en el living de mis abuelos (La felicidad); y un ensayo de video (La vida en rojo) que funciona como espejo de las demás piezas expuestas.
Julia Mensch, Buenos Aires, junio 2016
Publicación con texto de Marcos Krämer: Al final del espectro visible
Publicación Caлaшi-Salashi
Adquirir en:
En Buenos Aires en Big Sur y Asunto Impreso
y en Berlín en Motto: http://www.mottodistribution.com/shop/calashi-salashi.html
Editado por Kosice European Capital of Culture
Segunda edición: Castellano o inglés
Tapa dura, 135 páginas, impresión offset blanco y negro, 17.6 x 25 cm
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Centro Cultural Recoleta, sala C, Buenos Aires/AR 2016
Considero que lo biográfico es político. Hasta ahora el proyecto contó con varias etapas, que me llevaron hacia diferentes geografías (Argentina, ex República Democrática Alemana, Ucrania), con la intención de investigar sus contextos actuales y hacer visibles las marcas que el sistema y doctrina socialista dejaron en ellos. La vida en rojo nace de la necesidad de entender mi herencia familiar, para cuestionarla y tomar de ella lo que me sirva para construir mis propias herramientas generacionales y accionar en el presente.
La muestra plantea una instalación donde por primera vez dialogan en un mismo espacio expositivo diferentes obras del proyecto La vida en rojo. Una proyección de diapositivas sincronizadas de 1973 y 2008/2014 de la ex RDA (El viaje de Rafael); una crónica de viaje a Salashi, actual Ucrania; un video que registra una conversación con tres preguntas en el living de mis abuelos (La felicidad); y un ensayo de video (La vida en rojo) que funciona como espejo de las demás piezas expuestas.
Julia Mensch, Buenos Aires, junio 2016
Publicación con texto de Marcos Krämer: Al final del espectro visible 
Publicación Caлaшi-SalashiAdquirir en:
En Buenos Aires en Big Sur y Asunto Impreso
y en Berlín en Motto: http://www.mottodistribution.com/shop/calashi-salashi.html
Editado por Kosice European Capital of Culture
Segunda edición: Castellano o inglés
Tapa dura, 135 páginas, impresión offset blanco y negro, 17.6 x 25 cm
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Broken Mirror
Maisons Daura, Open Studio, Saint-Cirq Lapopie/FR 2016
In his novel Heart of Darkness (1899), Joseph Conrad narrates a voyage up the Congo River in Africa by the story’s narrator Marlow, who in his journey searches for Mr. Kurtz, a chief of marfil exploitation. On his trip Marlow is witness of the european colonist’s brutalities towards african natives and once he found the mystic character of Kurtz, Marlow sees how brutally he deals with the natives, who admire him as a god.
In Conrad’s novel, the global link between colonia and metropolis, so central to the ideology of imperialism, is articulated by the emblematic last words of Kurtz: “The Horror, the Horror”. Back in Europe Marlow meets Kurtz’s fiancée, who asks him to repeat Kurtz’s final words before his death, to what Marlow lies and tells her that they were her name. In The location of Culture, Homi Bhabha takes Marlow’s answer as a poetics of translation, which locates the border between colony and metropolis. “In taking the name of a woman – the Intended – to mask the demonic ‘being’ of colonialism, Marrow turns the brooding geography of political disaster – the heart of darkness – into a melancholic memorial to romantic love and historic memory. Between the silent truth of Africa and the salient lie to the metropolitan woman, Marlow returns to his initiating insight: the experience of colonialism is the problem of living in the ‘midst of the incomprehensible’.“ 1
During the last years an unprecedented number of people from Middle Eastern and African countries–many of them fleeing war, persecution and extreme poverty–have been crossing borders into and within Europe, traversing the Mediterranean, the Balkans, and the English Channel. The images of dead bodies at sea, of refugees on overloaded, rickety boats, and of families climbing practically through border fences made of barbed wire have become iconic in our collective imagination. 2 “The Horror” has entered Europe, it has brought to the heart pf the European Union the incomprehensible, what is supposed to be outside of the Schengen Border, but of what the EU is also part of, and responsable of.
After 1492 in the today called Latin America, natives were enchanted by mirrors from the colonists. Today the Occident contemplates itself in a broken mirror of its new global unconscious, characterised by the increase of migrant workers and refugees and their not anymore definable national identities. 3 A mirror which reflects a past of colonisation by many of the European Nations, today part of the EU; a present in which companies are taking advantages in the so called “developing countries”; and a recent active participation in the wars in the Middle East. All this in contrast with the initiatives by citizens, who start to organise themselves to help at least a small amount of the thousands of refugees who enter the EU with no more than hope to survive and to have a little better life.
The experience of living in the “midst of the incomprehensible” is no longer outside of the Schengen Border, consequences are so much everywhere out there in the world, that it is not possible anymore to translate the far away horror into a story to tell in the civilised Occident.
Is it possible to re-write global history, taking into consideration the responsibilities which Europe has? Is it possible to continue closing borders to protect security and welfare states based on the suffering of other nations? Is it possible to continue playing, that the broken mirror is actually not broken?
The shape of the broken mirror can be used to reflect multiples angels, geographies and backgrounds, and to build new readings of the history and present, and strategies (artistic and not) to act and try to change it.
1 Homi K. Bhabha, El lugar de la cultura (The location of Culture), Ediciones Manantial, Buenos Aires, 2002
2 Mayanthi Fernando and Cristiana Giordano, Introduction: Refugees and the Crisis of Europe, https://culanth.org/fieldsights/900-introduction-refugees-and-the-crisis-of-europe
3 Fredric Jameson, Modernism and Imperialism, in Nationalism, Colonialism, and Literature, University Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 2001
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Maisons Daura, Open Studio, Saint-Cirq Lapopie/FR 2016
In Conrad’s novel, the global link between colonia and metropolis, so central to the ideology of imperialism, is articulated by the emblematic last words of Kurtz: “The Horror, the Horror”. Back in Europe Marlow meets Kurtz’s fiancée, who asks him to repeat Kurtz’s final words before his death, to what Marlow lies and tells her that they were her name. In The location of Culture, Homi Bhabha takes Marlow’s answer as a poetics of translation, which locates the border between colony and metropolis. “In taking the name of a woman – the Intended – to mask the demonic ‘being’ of colonialism, Marrow turns the brooding geography of political disaster – the heart of darkness – into a melancholic memorial to romantic love and historic memory. Between the silent truth of Africa and the salient lie to the metropolitan woman, Marlow returns to his initiating insight: the experience of colonialism is the problem of living in the ‘midst of the incomprehensible’.“ 1
During the last years an unprecedented number of people from Middle Eastern and African countries–many of them fleeing war, persecution and extreme poverty–have been crossing borders into and within Europe, traversing the Mediterranean, the Balkans, and the English Channel. The images of dead bodies at sea, of refugees on overloaded, rickety boats, and of families climbing practically through border fences made of barbed wire have become iconic in our collective imagination. 2 “The Horror” has entered Europe, it has brought to the heart pf the European Union the incomprehensible, what is supposed to be outside of the Schengen Border, but of what the EU is also part of, and responsable of.
After 1492 in the today called Latin America, natives were enchanted by mirrors from the colonists. Today the Occident contemplates itself in a broken mirror of its new global unconscious, characterised by the increase of migrant workers and refugees and their not anymore definable national identities. 3 A mirror which reflects a past of colonisation by many of the European Nations, today part of the EU; a present in which companies are taking advantages in the so called “developing countries”; and a recent active participation in the wars in the Middle East. All this in contrast with the initiatives by citizens, who start to organise themselves to help at least a small amount of the thousands of refugees who enter the EU with no more than hope to survive and to have a little better life.
The experience of living in the “midst of the incomprehensible” is no longer outside of the Schengen Border, consequences are so much everywhere out there in the world, that it is not possible anymore to translate the far away horror into a story to tell in the civilised Occident.
Is it possible to re-write global history, taking into consideration the responsibilities which Europe has? Is it possible to continue closing borders to protect security and welfare states based on the suffering of other nations? Is it possible to continue playing, that the broken mirror is actually not broken?
The shape of the broken mirror can be used to reflect multiples angels, geographies and backgrounds, and to build new readings of the history and present, and strategies (artistic and not) to act and try to change it.
1 Homi K. Bhabha, El lugar de la cultura (The location of Culture), Ediciones Manantial, Buenos Aires, 2002
2 Mayanthi Fernando and Cristiana Giordano, Introduction: Refugees and the Crisis of Europe, https://culanth.org/fieldsights/900-introduction-refugees-and-the-crisis-of-europe
3 Fredric Jameson, Modernism and Imperialism, in Nationalism, Colonialism, and Literature, University Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 2001
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