‘eroding territory’ is a group exhibition curated by Cecilia González Godino.

The exhibition features works by: Alberta Whittle, Alexa Kumiko Hatanaka, Assaf Evron, Christina Leslie, Farah Salem, Kara Springer, Marigold Santos, Martha Atienza, Nep Sidhu and Sebastián Maquieira.

The term “territory” comes from the Latin terra torium or “the land that belongs to someone.” To speak of “territory,” or to approach geopolitical history in “territorial” terms, therefore entails an alleged human right of possession of the land—that has too often granted ownership of its natural resources and its inhabitants to those claiming its “discovery.”

With the notion of territory also came the superficial and artificial delimitation of the natural space, creating the illusion of containment and of borders to respond to imperial needs, and to then articulate a national identity. Colonial mappings emptied the environment of meaning, both delineating its possibilities and disregarding those geological and subaltern elements that exist beyond the superficial and flattening vision that western imperatives imposed on the Earth. 

The artists featured in this exhibition dismantle colonial structures of landscape by reclaiming a geological agency that allows them to dive into the sediments and layers of their diasporic identities—to dive into a “terra” with multiple spaces, undercurrents, and temporalities.