AMASADAS

For my graduate thesis project (UNIVERSIDAD DE MONTERREY, 2019) I created Amasadas, a deep dive to different kinds of tortillas, their histories and cultural significations, their social implications as well as the genealogy of corn and flour tortillas. Through collective tortilla-making and conversation, we reflected on the social tensions surrounding food and labor: how do we eat tortillas? who makes them? how are they made? what resources are needed to sustain our consumption? what does that say about us and our lives? A long process that seeks to negotiate with the symbolic tensions that surround us.

The participatory project spanned 4 public events, hosted at Taller Vegánico, UDEM, and Festival Internacional de Santa Lucía, where people came in, made tortillas and shared experiences. The project was later featured as part of Memoria Corporeizada, a collective exhibition at Museo del Centenario, in San Pedro Garza García, Nuevo León. The live Amasada was activated several times through the duration of the exhibition, and the remnants of the action remained at the gallery for other visitors.

Amasadas also began with a performance piece presented in July 2019 at Festival Árido Colegio Civil, where I worked my body weight in Maseca into masa. The performance lasted about four and a half hours, until I had reached my body’s limit to continue working on the masa.AUG-DEC 2019

THESIS PROJECT
LICENCIATURA EN ARTES
UNIVERSIDAD DE MONTERREY

Sara Isabel Medina