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microtextiles   >   URDIMBRES DE LUZ

Weavings of Light (Urdimbres de Luz). 2007. Microtextiles, lightboxes, slide projectors, documentation printouts. Enlace Arte Contemporaneo, Lima.
 
There are 3 groups of microtextiles:
- DNA of crops native to America (potato, corn and others).
- DNA of ethnic groups historically associated to these crops (Maya, Kechua and others).
- DNA of the epidemics of the Conquest (smallpox, measles and others). It is important to remember that during the Conquest the invading army used epidemics for ethnocide.
 
Each textile is labeled with the common and scientific name of the specie; and its internet location in a genetic database. As an example: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nuccore/55583092?report=genbank
 
The labels of plants show the corporation that patented the DNA, the date and the file number of the patent. As an example: Monsanto Technology, WO 2004092390-A2 4, 28-OCT-2004.

This work makes a parallel between the Conquest of the XV century and the actual plunder of plants. The propagation of transgenic crops are comparable to the epidemics of the Conquest. The extinction of native varieties of crops, as a result of transgenic agriculture, affects many ethnic groups, as the epidemics did before.

The monarch butterfly represents the pollinizator species that are going extinct due to the transgenic crops.

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exhibition catalogue

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cholera

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monarch butterfly

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microtextiles on a light table

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