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Watch How Artist Minerva Cuevas Uses Her Creative Practice to Trigger Real-World Change


For artist Minerva Cuevas, every object is the potential foundation of an artwork, even if you don’t realize it at first.

A native of Mexico City, the artist’s practice is rooted in socially engaged activism that draws attention to both worldwide and more local political and social issues such as food shortages, rampant capitalism, fair labor practices, and the detrimental effects of climate change. Much of Cuevas’s work takes the form of small interventions to upset the larger system she is critiquing; her self-proclaimed most important project to date is the ongoing non-profit Mejor Vida Corp, or Better Life Corporation, which is comprised in part of acts she tracks as a “cartography of resistance.”

In an exclusive interview filmed as part of Art21’s flagship series Art in the Twenty-First Century, Cuevas explained how her conceptually rooted practice has real-world consequences.

“Symbolic actions” like giving away subway tickets, student I.D. cards, or altering the barcode at the grocery store “created this sense of freedom that actions are possible” she said. “You empower people… this little disturbance in the system, no? It’s finding the gap in the bureaucratic process.” From there, Cuevas began to take a larger role in drawing public attention to how major corporations and bureaucratic systems harm society in many ways.

Production still from the "Art in the Twenty-First Century" Season 8 episode, "Mexico City," 2016. © Art21, Inc. 2016.

Production still from the “Art in the Twenty-First Century” Season 8 episode, “Mexico City,” 2016. © Art21, Inc. 2016.

For the project Del Montte—Bananeras (2003/10), the artist intentionally changed the spelling of the Fresh Del Monte Produce brand to reference the military president of Guatemala José Efraín Ríos Montt, who ordered the genocide of members of the indigenous Ixil group. Using the logo that supermarket shoppers around the world can identify by sight, the artist’s political statement points directly to the corrupt practices of corporations.

“Art is totally connected to social change,” the artist said. “We don’t have a way to measure how art can impact society, and that’s good because that’s part of the freedom to do.”

 

Watch the video, which originally appeared as part of Art21’s series Art in the Twenty-First Century, below. “Minerva Cuevas – in gods we trust” is on view at Kurimanzutto in New York through April 15, 2023.

This is an installment of “Art on Video,” a collaboration between Midnight Publishing Group News and Art21 that brings you clips of news-making artists. A new season of the nonprofit Art21’s flagship series Art in the Twenty-First Century is available now on PBS. Catch all episodes of other series, like New York Close Up and Extended Play, and learn about the organization’s educational programs at Art21.org.

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Artist Wangechi Mutu on Honoring the Spirit of the Natural World in Her Fantastical Works


Right now the New Museum has been transformed into an otherworldly scene, all thanks to Wangechi Mutu. Blending folklore and science in a striking manner, the artist’s big show gives us massive bronze sculptures of fantastical hybrid creatures astride sea creatures, surrounded by luminous works on paper depicting still more fantastical beings. It’s the first time that the museum has ever given its entire building over to a single artist. And it’s a tour-de-force for the Kenya-born Mutu.

“I’ve always been a city girl with a nature brain,” Mutu says in an exclusive interview filmed as part of Art21’s series Extended Play. “I’ve always loved animals, plants, and insects.” That much is clear, considering the figures that populate her imagery: attenuated female forms with faces of leaf fronds, the beings are celestial and yet literally sculpted from the earth, and rooted in it.

In the video interview, which originally aired back in 2021, the artist traces the themes of her artistic practice, which are informed by her childhood in Africa where she attended all-girls Catholic school. At school in the 1970s and ’80s, children were taught British history, but not the traditions, heritage, or culture of their own community. “We hadn’t even looked at our own histories,” she explained. “There isn’t one particular way of seeing things. And in fact, when there is a singular voice or singular story, it tends to be domineering, problematic, and often fictional.”

When Mutu moved to New York City to pursue her art, she began working in collage, drawing on source material like fashion and wildlife magazines to anchor her own watercolors. That early work led her to study the history of photography and consider how it grew on a parallel trajectory with colonization. “The ‘other’ was photographed, and packaged, and consumed,” she argues. “Your image essentially became who you were.”

And so, Mutu began to create other, alternate identities through hybridized forms “combining humans and animals.” That notion, she says is “as old as the human mind.” Through her unique blended forms, Mutu creates a world of multiple perspectives, histories, and futures—and it’s thrilling.

 

Watch the video, which originally appeared as part of Art21’s series Extended Play, below. “Wangechi Mutu: Intertwined” is on view at the New Museum in New York through June 4, 2023. 

This is an installment of “Art on Video,” a collaboration between Midnight Publishing Group News and Art21 that brings you clips of news-making artists. A new season of the nonprofit Art21’s flagship series Art in the Twenty-First Century is available now on PBS. Catch all episodes of other series, like New York Close Up and Extended Play, and learn about the organization’s educational programs at Art21.org.

 

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Pioneering Photographer Ming Smith on How She Found Freedom in Her Art, and the Power of Drawing on ‘Goddess Energy’


,=Whether she’s shooting street photography, portraiture, or landscapes, Ming Smith always produces a singularly poetic version of whatever genre she tackles. While the pioneering art photographer’s career has spanned 50 years, the past two in particular have been especially fruitful, with gallery exhibitions in London and New York, as well as a monograph published by Aperture. The scope of her vision is on full display in 2023, with projects ranging from two solo museum exhibitions to a collaboration with Cadillac.

First up is “Projects,” which opened February 4 at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. This deep dive into Smith’s black-and-white archives is a full-circle achievement: In 1975, she was the first African American female photographer to have her work acquired by MoMA. (Smith was also the first female member of groundbreaking photo collective Kamoinge, spotlighted in 2020 at the Whitney Museum of American Art.) At Frieze L.A., Smith’s “The Things She Knows”—new and rare choreographic-inspired works—will be on display at Nicola Vassell Gallery’s booth from February 16 through 19. “Feeling the Future,” opening in May at Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, is a vivid counterbalance with splashes of color.

Ming Smith, <i>Womb</i> (1992). Courtesy of the artist. © Ming Smith.

Ming Smith, Womb (1992). Courtesy of the artist. © Ming Smith.

The aforementioned collaboration, titled “The Goddess,” is a partnership between Cadillac and Midnight Publishing Group, and will be unveiled later this month on Midnight Publishing Group Auctions. Ming, along with Petra Collins and Dannielle Bowman, was tasked with re-envisioning the Cadillac goddess ornament for their ultra-luxury EV CELESTIQ.

It’s a fascinating possibility, as Smith’s evolving, hard-to-quantify vision is decidedly uncommercial—and proudly so. Although she’s shot such icons such as Nina Simone, Grace Jones, Sun Ra, and Tina Turner, Smith is the great equalizer, humanizing her subjects even if they’re on stage. With an expressionist’s eye, she wields shadows as potently as light. She explores the Black experience, but taps into the universal, the abstract, and the other-dimensional. Her images resonate not just because of what they capture, but what they don’t. The narrative is often inscrutable; a through-line in her work is mystique.

“I always thought a photograph doesn’t need words,” Smith said. “I express what I need to fully in my photograph. It’s a complete thought, and the viewer can get whatever they want from it.”

Smith sat down with us last month in her Harlem apartment. She was beatific in an emerald pleated skirt and cardigan, and looked decades younger than her 73 years. As she answered questions, she spoke calmly and moved and gestured with a dancer’s grace.

Ming Smith, Self-Portrait (ca. 1988). Courtesy of the artist.

Ming Smith, Self-Portrait, New York, New York (1992). Courtesy of the artist.

Let’s go back a few decades. You studied microbiology at Howard University. How does this connect to photography?  

I was pre-med. I wanted to help people. My grandfather used to put me on his lap and say, “You’re gonna be a doctor.” I was trying to please him because it was his dream. My father was more of an artist. At Howard I had to take zoology, and we had to cut a frog. I was horrified—I just couldn’t. So I switched to microbiology, and I’m just now remembering this about studying chemistry: things were symmetrical. When you looked under the microscope, there was a lot of beauty.

Red Hot Jazz I (1979). Courtesy of the artist. © Ming Smith.

Red Hot Jazz I (1979). © Ming Smith. Courtesy of Ming Smith Studio.

I took botany and genetics. There was balance, form, symmetry, and beauty. It was very poetic, looking at the way things were made. I wasn’t thinking about being an artist then at all, although I photographed all the time.

I took an elective photography course, and the instructor—well, I shouldn’t say this, but he wasn’t very sophisticated or worldly. I asked him, “Can I have a career as a photographer?” He told me I could do medical photography. That’s better than when I was graduating from high school and my school counselor told me I could be a domestic, and why was I going to college?

Acid Rain (Mercy, Mercy Me, Marvin Gaye), 1977. Courtesy of the artist. © Ming Smith.

Acid Rain (Mercy, Mercy Me, Marvin Gaye) (1977). © Ming Smith. Courtesy of Ming Smith Studio.

Does this experience connect to why you went to a historically Black university?

Exactly. They were very, I guess you’d say, racist. There were a lot of teachers that were like that, but there were also a lot who weren’t. I remember my third-grade teacher, Mrs. Booth, showed us how to dance the Irish jig. She taught us watercolors. She had us singing. I realize now she introduced us to the arts. She was an older lady, and I remember one day she fell. And this guy that always liked me, I couldn’t stand him because he laughed at her. I was mad. I never spoke to that guy again.

Ming Smith, Sun Ra Space II. 1978. Courtesy of the artist. © Ming Smith.

Ming Smith, Sun Ra Space II (1978). © Ming Smith. Courtesy of Ming Smith Studio.

You started taking photographs long before you were a photographer.
My father was an avid photographer; he had the Argus C3 and my mother had a Brownie that just stayed in the coat closet. I brought my mother’s Brownie to school when I was five and I took pictures of my first day of kindergarten. My mother was always like, “When are you gonna make you some money? You still doing that damn photography, that art?”

My father wanted to be an artist, but my grandmother told him that he could never support his family being an artist. And he could have gone to medical school, too, but he chose to be a pharmacist and have his family and do art at home.

Before becoming a photographer you were a successful fashion model. How was it being on the other side of the lens?

I was friendly, and I left—what else was there? I didn’t hang around. That was work. In the modeling world, I didn’t really fit in. Someone was always judging you. I was kind of the outsider, and I tend to have friends that are outsiders too.

The majority of the few friends that I had I met getting my hair done. I met Grace Jones and we bonded over girl talk. She was down. No one liked her. She was too much for this business. And I didn’t fit in. We became real friends and could speak the heart and exchange female energy. When she came back from Paris, she was performing at Studio 54. I didn’t go to Studio 54—I didn’t have the money! She says, “Bring your camera and I’ll leave your name at the door.”

Ming Smith, <i>Grace Jones at Studio 54 </i> (1978). Courtesy of Ming Smith Studio.

Ming Smith, Grace Jones at Studio 54 (1978). Courtesy of Ming Smith Studio.

You mentioned supporting yourself through art. But you never went the commercial route, even though you were coming from the fashion realm. You never looked at photography as a way to make a buck.  

When I had any free time, I would go to the film houses where they had black-and-white films. I still plan to do a film one day, a beautiful film. I was really a loner. And I could continue to be so with my photography. I was doing street photography, in a way, at Howard, but didn’t know it. I could see a photograph and I didn’t need to be validated by what someone else said. It was coming from my own truth and I didn’t wanna mess with that, because this is where I had real freedom. I didn’t care what any critic said. For commercial work, you needed money to have a studio. You needed equipment.

Anytime I needed it, photography was a place to go to. As I look at it now, it was healing. This is what I hope: that people see my work one day and heal—or, you know, get involved in that instead of drinking or drugs or something. It was a go-to place where you could be private and no one could criticize you or tell you what to do.

You mentioned earlier that you appreciated the beauty and symmetry of microbiology. Your work seems decidedly asymmetrical, incorporating weird framing, imperfection, and an off-center point-of-view—qualities that make it special.

I think that’s part of being anti-establishment, my own way of protesting against things that are conventional and “the way it should be done.” You can create outside of that and make something really beautiful.

Ming Smith, Amen Corner Sisters, Harlem, New York (1976). © Ming Smith. Courtesy of the artist.

You were born in Detroit, Michigan, the car capital. Did that give this Cadillac project more resonance for you?

In the Black community, Cadillac is a status symbol. The Cadillac was always a signal of having arrived in life. My aunts and a lot of my family members in Detroit, they all had Cadillacs. They were entrepreneurs. They owned a pharmacy in Detroit. I have a series built on [playwright] August Wilson, it’s called “August Moon.” And one of my photos was of a Cadillac, because it was part of the folklore of the Hill District for me.

Ming Smith, The Window Overlooking Wheatland Street Was My First Dreaming Place. 1979. Courtesy of the artist. © Ming Smith.

Ming Smith, The Window Overlooking Wheatland Street Was My First Dreaming Place (1979). © Ming Smith. Courtesy of the artist.

The theme for the Cadillac project was a reinterpretation of their “Goddess” hood ornament. It adorned most models from 1930 to 1956 and is returning on their ultra-luxury EV CELESTIQ. You found inspiration for yours in mythology?

Ma’at is a deity from ancient Egypt who stands for truth, justice, righteousness, and balance. There are 42 principles of Ma’at, almost like commandments—I shall not do this, I shouldn’t do that. She represents complete balance in that civilization. I was thinking about electric cars and all of this super high technology that’s going on. Maybe we’re moving too fast?

How was it working on this project?

This is one of the best shoots that I’ve had. I was really in my element and I just got some of the goddess energy from the statue. It was a very spiritual time. I worked over Christmas, the spiritual time for many religions. So, it was a very relaxed and spiritual process. I make my best work when I’m in a spiritual or meditative state.

Look for The Goddess Commissioned by Midnight Publishing Group x Cadillac, coming soon on Midnight Publishing Group Auctions.

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Wet Paint in the Wild: Artist Monsieur Zohore Rode Out His L.A. Gallery Opening Inside a Bespoke Coffin-Turned-Kissing Booth


Welcome to Wet Paint in the Wild, the freewheeling—and free!—spinoff of Midnight Publishing Group News Pro’s beloved Wet Paint gossip column, where we give art-world insiders a disposable camera to chronicle their lives on the circuit. To read the latest Wet Paint column, click here (members only).

Monsieur Zohore’s absurd, irreverent artwork tends to steal the show wherever it’s on view. While the artist is best known for his paintings on paper towels and his confrontational, campy performances, Zohore’s work often makes people laugh at first, then realize that these pieces are searing satires of deeply troubling racial realities in America.

His new show at M+B in Los Angeles, “My Condolences,” is a satire of the outsized trend of figurative painting by Black artists in the art market. The artist asked 93 different artists to paint, while at the opening, Zohore lied in a handmade casket and asked viewers to kiss him through a cut-out in the wood (it’s on view now through February 18th). Let’s take a look at what that process was like…

Bonjour, je m’appelle Monsieur Zohore and welcome to the installation of my most recent show “MZ.25 (My Condolences)” at M+B in Los Angeles. Putting a show together with 93 artists in it was an all-hands-on-deck kind of situation. Even my gallerist, Benjamin Triggano, was doing construction work.

A lot of people thought I had a death wish when I told them I was trying to get 93 artists to make portraits of me, to which I would respond “No, I have a death wish because my contribution to the show is a coffin that is also a kissing booth.”

If all of this wasn’t enough chaos I decided to crank out a few more of my paper towel paintings just for shits and gigs.

A long day wouldn’t be complete without a long dinner with my two favorite French clowns, Benjamin Triggano and Olivier Babin. Meals with them are always dinner and a show.

Planning meetings with Tess from the gallery all took place at a Lisa Vanderpump establishment because why not? You know you would too if you could. Here we are in front of Sur.

This was the most innovative install I have ever experienced. Benson from the gallery had a solution for every problem, like how to reheat pizza at lunch.

A show of 93 portraits meant 93 sittings. Here I am after posing for Marianne Simnet at Hollywood Forever Cemetery.

Closed out this day with a bougie sushi dinner with Cameron Patricia Downey, who flew in from Minneapolis for the show.

Back at the gallery on the last day of install and it’s go big or go home, like this massive Fawn Rogers video sculpture. Pro Tip: Track suits from Target make your ass look great.

Had to move the studio outside…for my hangover after having too many bougie sushi martinis at dinner last night.

But here comes my bestie Jo Messer to the rescue. She always knows exactly what I need to get through the day.

Install is finally over and I go look for a little R-E-S-P-E-C-T with LaKela Brown.

You haven’t lived till you give a lecture in a coffin you built for yourself.

I never thought my last supper would be vegan tacos in L.A. with Sandy Williams IV, Aaron Fowler, LaKela Brown, and Claude Wampler, but I can’t say I mind.

Claude Wampler told me It’s bad luck to not buy a new outfit for your opening so we had to go shopping.

And it’s even worse luck to not have you fit cosigned by the baddest chick in the room. Thank god Chiristina Ine-Kimba Bolye waltzed in just in time.

I hope you didn’t think I was kidding when I said I built myself a coffin that is also a kissing booth.

Could have done this piece all day. My only regret is not charging for the privilege of my smooches.

Performance is over and it’s finally time to party. Nicole Nadeau and Jade Catta-Preta gas me up as I wait for my celebratory special chocolate to kick in.

My chocolate finally hits and I decided to spend the rest of my opening rolling around on the floor. Thank god Lucy Bull was down.

Who else would you want driving the getaway car than Auttriana Ward in this wig! My mind on chocolate could not be more pleased!

Not sure who took this picture but bless them for making sure I looked my best.

Nothing is better for a hangover than gossiping with Claude Wampler over lobster.

This was my first time going to the beach in L.A. and I have to say it was worth the wait… even if I had to simulate my own death to get there.

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Architects Jaqueline Lessa and Francisco Pardo on How Looking to Mexico’s Past Helps Them Design for the Future


Based in São Paulo, Brazil, Jaqueline Lessa established her architectural atelier Entre Terras (translation: “between lands”) two years ago in order to answer human questions through craft. This ethos is evident in all of Lessa’s work, from her airy, minimalist design for São Paulo’s Haight Clothing Store to her free-flowing exhibition settings for the likes of the local Bergamin & Gomide gallery.

After studying in New York, Francisco Pardo moved back to his hometown of Mexico City in the early 2000s; from here, he established himself as a leading architect on the international stage. He did this, he said, by embracing the local way of “mixing things up”—a creative freedom that is vital to his work on projects such as Casa Aguacates, where he built a house under an avocado field in Valle de Bravo, a lake town outside of Mexico City.

With Midnight Publishing Group News, Lessa and Pardo discussed how they arrived in their careers, what drives their work forward, and their mutual admiration of Mexico as an endless source of inspiration.

Francisco Pardo and Jaqueline Lessa. Courtesy of the architects.

Francisco Pardo and Jaqueline Lessa. Courtesy of the architects.

What is the story behind each of your decisions to pursue a career in architecture?

Jaqueline Lessa (J.L.): I’ve thought a lot about this. I was born in the countryside, in a small city called São Lourenço do Sul, in the southernmost state of Brazil. My childhood was very related to nature and [the] earth. I’ve tried to remember all of the moments that I had and that probably made me aware that I wanted to have a creative practice.

I was very close to my grandmother and spent my childhood watching her growing vegetables and cooking them for our family. I think this simple gesture of changing something and then creating intimacy between people through her work, or something she was passionate about, was something that awakened my sense to the possibility that some activities [bring] a new perspective to an ordinary condition.

But I didn’t know I would be an architect until the moment I had to choose it.

Francisco Pardo (F.P.): I was [planning] to be an industrial designer, but got caught up in architecture—it was the only career [choice related to] design at my university. I fell in love the first day; I thought it was fantastic.

I had a similar experience to what [you] described, Jacqueline. My grandmother was a painter, and I was very close to her. She was also an interior designer at some point in her life. I never really saw her work, but she talked about it.

So there was a connection with family, but [for me,] the decision [of what to pursue] was random. It was a lucky thing that I ended up here.

Inside Pardo's Casa Aguacates. Photo: Diego Padilla.

Inside Pardo’s Casa Aguacates. Photo: Diego Padilla.

What do you believe is the most imperative factor in maintaining a creative career?

F.P.: That’s a very complicated question because there’s a lot of factors [in] the commitment to do something. I’ve given [it] a lot of thought lately, especially as an architect—you get involved in this profession and then end up thinking that everything revolves around architecture.

I think the pandemic helped me to understand that’s not true—that your profession doesn’t define your life. So, I’ve been trying to get out of the field in my free time and do [other] things that I like. I like to watch cinema, I like to go to art festivals, and I like to just walk on the street in different cities and see [what’s around me]. That’s the way that I learn [about] architecture.

J.L.: I agree with [you,] Francisco. I think it’s being able to perceive lots of aspects of life aside from architecture; it’s coming back to the things that will feel true.

I’ve thought a lot about Paulo Mendes da Rocha this year. I think he was a very good architect, not because he knew how to draw, but because he understood life.

Can you explain what drew you to Mexico as a fruitful setting for artistic production?

F.P.: I lived in New York for five years. It was a very complicated city, with [a lot of] competition. I realized that to make it in New York would be very hard. You’ll probably be 40, 50 [years old] before you even get a good chance to do architecture.

I come from Mexico. It’s a country that is hands-on. I arrived [in] Mexico, I opened a studio, and I was building five, six-story buildings by the time I was 28. My friends from New York were doing probably an interior [project] at the most, and they were trained as architects.

I think I was lucky because I entered into a new era of Mexican design. A lot of things—from artists, architects, chefs, and all [of] the creative scenes—have been booming for the last 15 years.

Lessa's ceramic sculptures from her residency at Pocoapoco in Oaxaca. Photo: Luvia Lazo.

Lessa’s ceramic sculptures from her residency at Pocoapoco in Oaxaca. Photo: Luvia Lazo.

J.L.: The last time I was in Mexico, I was a resident at Pocoapoco, in Oaxaca. It’s a very special city, very much rooted in the presence of traditions. [In] Mexico, people are a little bit more aware of [their] past. In Brazil, we are still discovering things.

I feel [like] Brazil is an island in Latin America [due to its language and distinct culture]. Going to Mexico was a way to understand Mexico, but I was able to come back to Brazil with more understanding about who I am as a Brazilian and who we are as a country. I also wanted to come back with questions about things that I don’t know about, that we are trying to understand.

Can you talk about your creative processes?

F.P.: For me and my team, it’s very important to look at every project as a different entity, a different prototype. I try to open the discussion formally and programmatically. Every project has its own conditions, so the result [is always] different.

I focus [on] what the site has to say. Each site gives you information—the elements, the local materials. [After] research, the design process is very simple. Lots of the planning, very little with the execution—that’s the main idea.

The creative process for me has to do with the simple stuff—what is [on] site, the sun, the wind, any natural elements. For example, in Casa Aguacates we wanted to keep an avocado field intact, so we decided to bury the house; by [building below ground] we did not affect the view.

Looking down not the avocado fields where Pardo built Casa Aguacates. Photo: Sandra Pereznieto.

Looking down not the avocado field where Pardo built Casa Aguacates. Photo: Sandra Pereznieto.

J.L.: I agree with you that when we’re building something in the countryside, the context gives you information, more strategies maybe. In the beginning of our practice, we [Entre Terras] had more commercial projects. With those, I didn’t feel that we had much information.

Now, we are developing residential projects in a rural area of Juquitiba, which is known for having the largest green areas in the state of São Paulo. We are very much considering the context in a way that we weren’t when we were building commercial projects.

In one of [Italian-born Brazilian architect] Lina Bo Bardi’s fantastic teachings, she said that she always starts a project by a function of aspect, imagining the future of the space—not in a formal way, but in a very humanistic way: how dinner will happen, how people will coexist. We always discuss a project imagining this moment of use, the life that the space could hold. What kind of moments are we creating? What levels of intimacy are we generating?

Oftentimes, art-making is rooted in research around a specific interest or inquiry, with the work reflecting a unique perspective from which to consider the world we live in. What points of concern do you consider to be most urgent today, and do you tackle those issues in your personal practice?

J.L.: I think probably the most urgent issue [we] have right now is climate change. This is an issue that we have considered a lot in the houses we are developing. [And as an atelier], we try to build less.

I believe architecture is an area where the idea that the future is ancestral applies: We look at the past to understand things from the present and to imagine a future. So, [the past] is something that we are researching in the office.

We try to incorporate traditional solutions that take advantage of and consider the environment, while at the same time we look to technology by doing research on materials and incorporating energy solutions that are more environmentally responsible.

A view from Haight Clothing, designed by Jaqueline Lessa in São Paulo. Photo: Ruy Teixeira.

A view from Haight Clothing, designed by Jaqueline Lessa in São Paulo. Photo: Ruy Teixeira.

F.P.: Mexico City is probably the oldest active city on the whole continent; there are other cities that are now ruins, but Mexico City is the only city that is pre-Colombian and active. It has layers, which is not a metaphor.

I tend to not take down or demolish buildings because I think that’s a bad idea for a city. It is more sustainable to reuse an existing structure than to build the most “sustainable” building from scratch. I’ve convinced clients not to demolish and instead to do restorations of buildings.

Like [you] said, the best architecture is the one that imagines a possible future. I always ask two questions: Is this thing that we’re doing beneficial to people and society? And are we making an effort to have the least impact? Because we always have an impact.

If [either answer is no], then we’re doing it wrong.

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