Time as a Material: Julieta Aranda’s Exploration of Resistance and Temporal Systems
Julieta Aranda
MS: Your work often explores the intersections of time, space, and human perception. How do you approach these concepts, and what draws you to experiment with them in your artistic practice?
JA: I remember distinctly that as a child, what drew me toward film and music was that they were “time-based mediums” – that is, they presented themselves over a duration of time. I ended up as an artist instead of a filmmaker/musician, which is what I originally aspired to… and when I was in the process of realizing that I was an artist instead, one of the first things that became evident was that I wanted to continue being time-based.
I embraced sculpture because (for me) it presents itself as a way of questioning space and materiality in very direct ways, even if the work ends up being impermanent or strictly conceptually based. And slowly, time became not just my subject matter, but very much one of my preferred materials, and one of the main interlocutors that I addressed my work to. While not all of my work deals with time, I find myself often coming back to the same questions: how to subvert one’s experience of time from the constraints of measuring systems, and make it something more than the ticking of the clock.
MS: Your exhibition at MUAC presents time not only as an object of study but as an active interlocutor. In works like “You Had No 9th of May!” and “Time Bank”, you challenge conventional notions of temporal systems and their ties to power structures. How do you envision the viewer’s relationship with time evolving through their encounter with this body of work? What kind of shift in perception do you hope to inspire?
JA: While measuring systems are unquestionably very useful for running infrastructures (schools, trains, etc.), I believe that time is much more than the measuring of it. As I started to research the social structures that keep time “running,” I have thought a lot about statements like “time is money” and about the 8-8-8 struggle for time division.
The equivalence of time and productivity has always been something that I find profoundly unsettling, and it is very important for me that with my work it is possible to see that, yes, we use time to make money, but time is much more than that one use of it. I am my own time, we are all our own time… what we do with time is not just make money; we also produce ourselves.
MS: Your exploration of time often transcends the human-centered perspective, delving into biological, cosmic, and even philosophical realms. How do you balance the poetic aspects of these investigations with the critique of the “Western anthropological machine” that seeks to dominate time? Can the artworks themselves act as sites of resistance against these hegemonic structures?
JA: I sincerely believe that artworks can be more than sites of resistance; at least that is what I always think about when making work. There are several functions to art; we have indeed resistance and representation, but there is also proposition: in the possibility of reading between the lines, and writing between the lines, we can imagine other worlds, other times, different presents, and different futures.
I think of these functions as “practical poetics” – I try to leave my work as open as possible, so that it can be more than the reading I myself assign to it… and I think a lot of the power that art can have (so that it can move mountains) resides on those readings, the echoes that it can have when it touches a viewer and creates an image that has to be responded to.
So I bring all of my concerns into my work. I think of my works as heterogeneous machines that hopefully produce more than images… if they can produce desires and dreams, as it has been the case for me with the work of artists that I admire, then they are not only resisting hegemonic structures but also hinting at the possibility of an otherwise.
MS: As an artist born in Mexico City but living and working between Berlin and New York, how is your relationship with your birth town? Do you think the cultural and social landscape of Mexico City has influenced your artistic practice, either directly or indirectly, despite your international perspective?
JA: I will always be a Mexican artist; I am very happy with that and don’t want to be anything else. But I also don’t want to be constrained by geography as a subject matter; these are not incompatible propositions. Of course, my growing up in Mexico City shaped the canvas upon which I place my ideas, but since I have ended up geographically far from my starting point, the ideas I work with are concerned with all of my experiences.
One thing I have never wanted to do is produce generic work – the kind of work that could have been made by any artist, anywhere. I work hoping that my interlacing of geographies and propositions comes across as the questioning of a Mexican artist that has crisscrossed the world following her nose, but always keeps her heart pointing home.
MS: Mexico City has such a vibrant cultural and social landscape. Are there any specific places – museums, parks, cafes, or neighborhoods – that inspire you or hold special significance for you when you’re here?
JA: So many! There are very personal references – the city is full of memories for me, and I always try to visit them when I am there, so I can see the passage of time. But beyond my personal maps, there are so many inspiring places for someone visiting.
I would suggest for people to look at the architecture and to visit the university, the espacio escultórico, the anthropology museum, and Tlatelolco, to get a sense of what Latin American modernism could do with space.
And then there is the food! Beyond the exquisite restaurants, of which there are many, I think that finding an authentic “comida corrida” is a great way to understand the relationship that people in Mexico have with food… we are always thinking about food!
