Forces that are not Landscape
Katya Mora established a relationship through listening and perceiving with a non-human entity: the Popocatepetl volcano, located in the territory today known as Mexico. She also approached the inhabitants of the region who in their daily life also establish a close link with the volcano to which they dedicate rites and offerings, because they understand it as part of an Altépetl: a complex and sustained relationship between the territory and the entities that exist within it.
Mora inquired into the toponyms that the volcano has had over time, all derived from the Nahuatl language. Forces that are not Landscape aims to show that the words landscape, country and payment -which in Spanish share an etymological root- are governed by the idea of understanding the territory as something fractioned, divisible and usable: extractive modernity in action. In an inverse operation, she recovers other historical names for that entity in order to trace possible new/old ways of being and relating to it, without the actual divisions with nature we encounter nowadays: Xihutepetl; Xalliquehuac; Popocatepetl.
Text by curator Mauricio Marcín
Forces that are not Landscape was first presented as a two-channel installation with 5.1. surround sound, which was created by recording the vibrations of the volcano with a geophone microphone during a period of extensive volcanic activity. It is composed by a whispering off-voice, in which the artist herself narrates the experiences and reflections that followed a search to establish a dialogue with the volcano and with the ‘tiemperos’ and ‘tiemperas’ (people in charge of talking to the volcano on behalf of its people).
Derived from Forces that are not Landscape is a multidisciplinary body of work comprising paintings, photographs, written accounts, three radio broadcasts, and an audiovisual archive that traces the full scope of the research and its critical framework.
Exhibition Flash 3.0: Arte Contemporáneo en Puebla. 2025. Photo: courtesy Fundación Amparo - Museo Amparo, Puebla.
frontal view
Exhibition Flash 3.0: Arte Contemporáneo en Puebla. 2025. Photo: courtesy Fundación Amparo - Museo Amparo, Puebla.
Exhibition Flash 3.0: Arte Contemporáneo en Puebla. 2025. Photo: Miriam Rosas
Exhibition Flash 3.0: Arte Contemporáneo en Puebla. 2025. Photo: Miriam Rosas
Exhibition: Shadowily in different tongues. IFA, Gallery Stuttgart. 2025
