An event to commemorate the opening of the exhibition featuring a conversation with Luis Herrera, photographer and activist, and Ana Rodriguez, curator and researcher, both of whom are based in Quito.
6:30 – 7:30 p.m. Conversation (in the Critique Space, corner of 2 West 13th St. and Fifth Ave.; seating is limited and first-come, first-served)
7:30 – 9:00 p.m. Galleries on view with food and drinks
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Located in the heart of Quito, Mercado San Roque is the largest traditional food market in Ecuador’s capital, and feeds approximately one third of the city. Even though the market is a significant social, cultural and economic hub for many, it is often devalued in public perception as a site of crime, chaos and informal labor. Associations of market workers and local allied activist groups have come together in resistance, exposing and challenging the state and global market forces that create precarious conditions in this vital site of exchange.

This exhibition features five site-specific proposals from a group of students from Parsons’ graduate urban programs. Their research, focused on the Mercado as an entry point into urban tensions and relations of power. In collaboration with the Quito-based activist group Red de Saberes [Network of Knowledges], whose multi-media work is also in the exhibition, they seek to strengthen existing resistance movements in the market, and to extend its networks and strategies toward solidarity with international movements.

The conditions of the Mercado propel a “territorial urgency,” as a site in which the social, economic and cultural politics insist on a demand for action. The group seeks to respond these urgencies in their research agenda by focusing on intersecting issues of indigenous rights, uneven development, aggressive tourism campaigns, cultural heritage, alternative pedagogies and food sovereignty. Together, the works formulate an alternative vision towards a more locally empowered and just city.

With works by Mateo Fernandez-Muro (MS Design and Urban Ecologies, ‘16), Luis Herrera (Red de Saberes, Quito), Tait Mandler (MS Design and Urban Ecologies, ‘16), Gamar Markarian (MS Design and Urban Ecologies, ‘16), Masoom Moitra (MS Design and Urban Ecologies, ‘16), Maria Morales (MS Design and Urban Ecologies, ‘16), Sinead Petrasek (MA Theories of Urban Practice, ‘16), and Alexandra Venner (MS Design and Urban Ecologies, ‘16).

Advisors: Miguel Robles-Durán (Professor of Urbanism) and Lydia Matthews (Professor of Visual Culture).

Curated and organized by Sascia Bailer (MA Theories of Urban Practice, ‘17) with the support of Sinead Petrasek (MA Theories of Urban Practice, ‘16).

Please visit the Shifting Urban Ecologies of Mercado San Roque blog.