MEXICO: Nomadic museum opens in Zocalo featuring exhibition of Canadian photographer Gregory Colbert

Record ID: 300387

  • Title: MEXICO: Nomadic museum opens in Zocalo featuring exhibition of Canadian photographer Gregory Colbert
  • Date: 21st January 2008
  • Summary: VARIOUS OF ARTISTIC VIDEO NEWS CONFERENCE
  • Embargoed: 5th February 2008 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Mexico
  • Country: Mexico
  • Topics: Arts / Culture / Entertainment / Showbiz
  • Reuters ID: LVA29M5G9OQX0SYFBS8DBDI2Y1I7
  • Story Text: Nomadic museum opens in Zocalo featuring exhibition of Canadian photographer Gregory Colbert. One million people expect to attend.
    Magnificent, beautiful and awe-inspiring sepia-toned photographs of wild animals with humans, framed by a huge bamboo structure will be displayed to the general Mexican public starting Saturday (January 19).
    Visitors will be able to experience a magical world where the boundaries between humans and animals disappear.

    "Ashes and Snow," Canadian-born artist Gregory Colbert's spectacular exhibition of 50 large-scale photographs and three artistic films will be housed by the Nomadic Museum, a temporary structure made of shipping containers covering half of Mexico City's Zocalo square, located in the heart of this metropolis. Over one million and a half people are expected to attend.
    The Zocalo Nomadic Museum was designed by Colombian architect Simon Velez and is composed primarily of bamboo and shipping containers, along with other recyclable and reusable materials. Inside, visitors will be able to access two gallery spaces bordered either side by water-filled bays, over which the photographs are suspended between bamboo columns and surrounded by curtains made-out of one million paper tea bags.

    "I think that it's a good idea because the artist is inviting us to reflect on this theme. It reflects on a nomadic issue and invites us to analyze how man has evolved," said exhibition visitor Marcelo Alvarez.
    To date, Colbert has completed extensive international expeditions to places as diverse as India, Egypt, Burma, Sri Lanka, Kenya, Ethiopia, Namibia, Tonga, the Azores, Antarctica and Borneo to explore interaction between man and animal, such as elephants, whales, manatees, eagles, jaguars and other animals in their own environments and on their own terms. The overall effect is an experience of wonder and contemplation, serenity and hope and depicts a world without beginning or end, past or present.
    The Mexico City opening will mark the fifth installation of "Ashes and Snow," Colbert's sixteen-year personal and artistic odyssey. Colbert, who originally conceived the idea for a sustainable travelling museum in 1999, told a news conference that he feels inspired and plans to shoot in Mexico.

    "Well I'm here in Mexico over the next six months and probably many more, but I've already planned to do five shoots and so I feel really inspired to actually close the circles."
    Mexico City Mayor, Marcelo Ebrard said that the exhibition intends to sensitize us to the natural world.

    "The main objective - apart from what has already been explained here - is to have an exhibition with this quality which has many important massages, fundamentally, the relationship with nature, ecological equilibrium, with what the fauna and flora means to the human being."
    The exhibition cost approximately $5 million USD to set-up; the investment has been met by the Televisa and Telmex Foundations as well as Rolex, with the Mexico City government providing the necessary logistics for its construction and security.
    There is no charge for admission, nevertheless, donations to Naturalia's jaguar conservation program in Sonora are being accepted.
    The exhibition which has been on display in Venice, New York City, Los Angeles and Tokyo will run for three months until April 27, 2008. Additional venues are planned for South America, Asia and Europe.
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