Inauguration, may 29, 2025, 13:00 h

38 International Festival for Sexual Diversity

Plasticidades encarnadas

Towards an art and culture retrostpective of cuinas, vestidas, travestis and trans women in México(1975-2025)

Collective exhibition

In 2022, an encounter between artists Rojo Génesis and Deborah Álvarez in Ciudad Juárez gave rise to Plasticidades encarnadas, an initiative dedicated to tracing the artistic and cultural practices of trans women in México dating back to the 70s.

This exhibition, part of the 38th International Festival for Sexual Diversity, represents a symbolic archeology and historic milestone. For the first time, a public museum in Mexico has embraced the work of two trans women curators, to present a counter-genealogy of Mexican transfeminine art. This approach challenges indifference toward living trans women, rejects neutrality, and moves beyond mere nostalgia for the archives of trans women's ancestors.

The research underpinning this exhibition is rooted in archives, artistic collections, and artifacts originating from the context of Mexico's Guerra sucia—a period marked by the persecution of cuinas, vestidas, and transvestites through state mechanisms. During this time, aesthetic and cultural practices flourished in nightlife and street culture, laying the groundwork for what we now recognize as trans art and memory. These serve as a platform to challenge and expand contemporary artistic expressions, practices transcend identity, and redefine the very concept of "artist" within our society.

The exhibition features a diverse array of mediums, including photography, sculpture, painting, drawing, self-publishing, video, and installation, extending into performance, spectacle, and music. Together, these elements weave a narrative that addresses the historical and cultural urgency of establishing a Museum of Transfeminine Art in Mexico City. This phase of the research reveals a fraction of the historicity we have access to as trans women in the face of the disappearance and privatization of archives in Latin American trans culture. Therefore, today, not all of us artists who should be occupying one of the halls of this bastion of Mexican avant-garde art are here.

 

 

Rojo Génesis y Sofía Moreno (Transfemenine Art Museum)

 

 

 

From may 29 2025