Idaid Rodriguez

Born in 1975 in Mexico
Works and lives in Mexico D.F.

My work reflects upon the different possibilities of memory construction both on a personal and collective level. I believe that my role as an artist is to be a “medium” or interpreter of experiences. I reconstruct the memories of the people I work with. “La Fama Perdida” is the main body of my work. It is an interdisciplinary project (originated in 2003 and still in process) which includes drawings, installations, texts, videos and site specific art. I was born and raised in La Fama, a blue-collar neighborhood that got its name from La Fama Montañesa Textile Factory, the first textile industry founded in Mexico City in 1831. After its closure in 1998, access to the factory was forbidden to the neighbors and former workers. Thereby, my work presents an alternative to rescue forgone spaces, appealing to the memories of the people who worked there.

The second part of my work derives from a dream I had where I see myself inside the General Insane Asylum “La Castañeda”. I wander among patients without being able to identify whether I’m a patient, a visitor or an employee. This feeling of uncertainty about my role in that place has generated in me a great deal of interest in reconstructing a fragment of the history of that Insane Asylum: through its eviction process and subsequent demolition in 1968. From a dedicated research at the Archivo Histórico de la Secretaría de Salud along with testimonials from former doctors, nurses and other employees from the Insane Asylum I recreate spatial structures – both from the Insane Asylum and the Archive- producing sound pieces, drawings and scale models in order to show different versions of a same historic act: the destruction of “La Castañeda.”
I. R.

Solo exhibitions
2010 – Sopa de Letras, Centro Cultural Morín, Querétaro.
2007 – La Fama Pérdida, UAEM, México D.F.
2006 – Los Lugares de la Memoria, itinerante, México D.F.
2005 – La Fama Montañesa, Museo de Historia de Tlalpan, México D.F.
2004 – Caminando por el Barrio de mi Memoria, México D.F.
2001 – Inquietudes, Casa de la Cultura San Mateo Xalpa México D.F.

Group Exhibitions
2016 – Museo Fluido Configuración de la Isla de Carmen, Guanal Museo Universitario de Ciencias y Artes, Campeche.
2015 – Traducir en acción: dibujo en proceso, Ex Teresa Arte Actual, México D.F.
2015 – Medios Entre Múltiples Narrativas//13 años de arte y educación, UAM, México, DF.
2014 – Cartografía portátil, Casa del Espectro Electromagnético, México D.F.
2013 – México: Inside Out, Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Texas, USA.
2013 – Construcción de lo Oculto, Galería de Arte Contemporáneo, Xalapa Veracruz.
2013 – Evidencias, UAM-A, México D.F.