colectivo amasijo: offering

Join us at The Brick for an afternoon gathering with colectivo amasijo, including a procession and communal meal to root us to the specific earth underneath the East Hollywood concrete. This action from the Mexico City-based collective seeks to recreate moments when the land was common, when paths and biodiversity were sown. Their research into the history and use of the East Hollywood watershed revealed a time when the land was not fragmented but rather, the vital rhythms of the territory were recognized by its inhabitants who practiced acts of reciprocity with the land. The artists ask: How do we reweave ourselves with the territory? How do we make seeds trust that human hands will sow them again? What are the technologies that we must (re)create where our reproduction of life is interconnected to the forests, the pastures, and the wetlands? 

From these questions, colectivo will guide a pilgrimage from the neighboring streets of Western Avenue and into Life on Earth, making offerings to each work in the exhibition. In agriculture, scattering (rather than sowing/planting) allows seeds to germinate and grow wherever they fall by chance; for colectivo, this offers a powerful metaphor for the movement of living things and ideas to take hold throughout communal land. The procession will culminate with an offering of endemic foods recently harvested by the artists during their agricultural journey in the Yucatán and La Milpa, La Escuela (the site of their field work in a unique ecosystem in the mountainous outskirts of Mexico City). As the artists describe, the offering draws from the women, the harvest, the rituals and the technology of these lands—from seeds to pinoles to moles, from the forest, the jungle, the desert and the sea—bringing a harvest of moving ecosystems, knit into food for us to sow and share.

All are welcome, though registration is required to participate in the food offering so we can account for capacity.