Chantal Meza – Disappearance of Worlds

Friday 6 June – Saturday 21 June
Wednesday to Friday 3pm – 6pm
Weekends 11am – 4pm
Exhibition will be open for 30 minutes after the events

Entrance is free

Worlds are disappearing before our eyes. Humans continue to be abducted and forcibly removed from their societies, while others simply vanish from the surface of the earth as they flee the ravages of conflict and violence. Cultures are being decimated and languages lost as ancestral knowledge’s and indigenous ways of life have been crushed under the weight of historical progress. Forests are being scorched and rivers running dry as consumption patterns lead to the devouring of ecologies and liveable habitats. Across the world, authoritarian regimes are emboldened, leading to disappearance of journalists and students which points to a wider problem of the disappearance of truth. This is happening at a time when the humanitarian dream to create a world free from conflict and violence is crumbling, shadowed it seems by a vacuum of ideas concerning humanities future.

What is the purpose of art when conforming these tragedies that are marked by a devastating absence? Relatedly, in a world that is blinded by the oversaturation of images, do we need to develop new ways of seeing and feeling of its beauty and pain? Might there even be a need to slow this world down, look upon its abstract forms and ask deeper questions about our very presences and absences? Confronting these urgent questions, the Disappearance of Worlds exhibition will showcase the work of the Mexican painter Chantal Meza, whose work for the past decade has confronted the violence, terror and the complexities of disappearance in both a human and ecological context.

Chantal Meza is a Mexican painter living and working in the United Kingdom. Her work has featured in exhibitions, auctions and biennials in prominent Museums and Galleries in Mexico, United Kingdom, Germany and Paraguay.

She has delivered many international lectures and workshops at reputable universities and public venues. Chantal has been commissioned publicly and privately. She was awarded a notable public recognition for her contribution to art in her home province in Puebla, Mexico and recently held a solo show in the City of Bristol and MOMA, Wales. She is the author of numerous articles on art and co-editor of a book on disappearance, which features her artworks published by McGill-Queens University Press. Her “State of Disappearance” collection is on permanent display at the Chancellors Building, University of Bath, UK.

The exhibition will be complimented by a suite of events including public talks from world leading authorities and also workshops exploring the multiple ways disappearance occurs and the possibility for new conversations between, artists, academics and student communities, policy makers, advocates and the public.

PROGRAMME

Private launch and Introduction Opening talk: Chantal Meza in conversation with Will Gompertz
Friday 6 June | 6pm-7pm Pichette Auditorium, Pembroke College
Will Gompertz – Director, Sir John Soane’s Museum, journalist and writer

Searching for the Disappeared: The Case of Mexico
Saturday 7 June | 4pm-6pm Pichette Auditorium, Pembroke College
Fernanda Lobo Díaz – Human Rights Program, Universidad Iberoamericana (Chair)
Lizet & Carmen Cardona – Corazones Robados Searching Mothers’ Collective

The Disappearance of Humanitarianism
Friday 13 June | 6pm-7.30pm Pichette Auditorium, Pembroke College
Gareth Owen – Former Humanitarian Director, Save the Children

Technological Responses to Disappearance
Saturday 14 June  | 4pm-6pm Pichette Auditorium, Pembroke College
Nicholas Márquez – President, British Association of Forensic Anthropology
Índira Navarro – Leader, Searching Mothers’ Collective ‘Guerreros Buscadores de Jalisco’
Miguel Moctezuma – University of Oxford/FOUND project
José Luis Silván – CentroGeo/FOUND project
Jorge Ruiz-Reyes – Transitional Justice Lab, University of Notre Dame
Andrea Horcasitas – Universidad Iberoamericana, Mexico

Justice for the Disappeared
Friday 20 June | 6pm-7.30pm Pichette Auditorium, Pembroke College
Phil Scraton – Campaigner & Emeritus Professor, Queens University Belfast

Escape from Disappearance: The power of Sanctuary
Saturday 21 June | 4pm-6pm Pichette Auditorium, Pembroke College
Jan Royall – Principal, Somerville College Oxford
Brad Evans – Director, Centre for the Study of Violence, Professor of Political Violence & Aesthetics, University of Bath
Hari Reed – incoming co-director,  Asylum Welcome