Minerva Cuevas: Not Impressed By Civilization

In Situ Project
Poster design
October 27 performance: sleeping in the forest, mountain cake.
 

This installation and performance was presented to the public on October 29, 2005 by the Walter Phillips Gallery as part of MS:T 3 Mountain Standard Time Performative Arts Festival. This event was sponsored by MS:T 3 through the Calgary Regional Arts Foundation, the Alberta Lottery Fund, and the Canada Council for Arts. Additional assistance was provided by the Alberta Foundation for the Arts.

Minerva Cuevas’s performance and installation for the Walter Phillips Gallery highlights the relationships between Banff, The Banff Centre, and its surroundings. Through research on the history of the national park and The Banff Centre, Cuevas’s performance and installation calls attention to the park’s sometimes tenuous relationship to nature.

Created over a two-week residency at the Centre, Not Impressed by Civilization, like many of Cuevas’s works, utilizes the gallery system to activate a public distribution. In this case, the posters, and the cake in the shape of nearby Mount Rundle, were given for free on the evening of October 29.

Characterized by public interventions, the use of media articulating campaigns which address economic and social processes Cuevas’s work often incorporates installation, video, photography, and advertising resources.

Minerva Cuevas is a social activist from Mexico City whose work combines artistic practice with creative politics. Cuevas gained international acclaim for creating Mejor Vida Corp (Better Life Corporation) in 1998. As the sole representative for this corporation, Cuevas provides services that often disrupt the flow of capitalism. Although all of MVC’s products are free and available at http://www.irational.org/mvc, it is not philanthropic; rather the goal of this and other projects by Cuevas is to create a human interface through social exchange.

For more information visit: http://www.minervacuevas.org