ARQUETOPIA FOUNDATION FOR DEVELOPMENT - PUEBLA

Arquetopia is an award-winning, Mexican official nonprofit foundation promoting Development, social transformation and productivity through artistic, cultural, and educational programs. The core of the Foundation is Sustainable Development through four principles embodied in all of Arquetopia’s programs and activities: social awareness, shared responsibility, innovation, and local networks development.

Identification Operation Process Organisation
IDENTIFICATION - LOCATION - CONTACT
  • Place name Arquetopia Foundation and International Artist Residency
  • ContinentNorth America
  • CountryMexico
  • Region Puebla
  • City / TownPuebla
  • AdressAvenida 15 Poniente 715, Centro Histórico
  • Postcode72000
  • Telephone+52 222-594-7728
  • General Emailinfo@arquetopia.org
  • Web sitewww.arquetopia.org
  • Person(s) in charge Christopher / Davis / Co-Executive Director
Date of creation: 30 July 2012
Last update: 1 May 2018
OPERATION
  • Name of the legal structureArquetopia AC
  • Legal statute Foundation, ONG
  • Creation date of the legal structure December 7, 2009
  • Nature of the current property Private
  • Team - Organization Francisco Guevara
    Co-Executive Director

    Christopher Davis
    Co-Executive Director and Director of Music Programs

    Nayeli Hernà¡ndez
    Programs Coordinator
  • Method of organization - Governance International Board of Directors
PROCESS – IDENTITY
  • Statement of the current project Founded in 2009, Arquetopia Foundation is an internationally established, nonprofit arts and cultural foundation with a social scope that emphasizes critical thinking through artistic practices. Our academic International Artist-in-Residence Programs are the largest and most reputable in Latin America, with an array of contents anchored in a solid structure of collabora-tions with prominent cultural institutions, renowned experts, and notable artists.

    We are invested in approaching art and art history with a critical perspective by understanding Mexico and Peru's complexity in context and incorporating nuances in narratives and interpretation of the 3,000-year heritage of visual culture of these two countries. Since its founding, Arquetopia has raised the bar in the residency field, becoming an international reference to all residency programs in Latin America, by influencing most of them in approaching art making with more rigorous practices, critical perspectives, and high standards.

    We approach art making by placing art practices at the center of critical discussions to reveal the complex relationship between “the ways of seeing,” power, and the production of art and/or the writing of art history. Our methodology is unique for approaching international encounters by understanding performativity while applying Levinasian ethics to the artistic process to respect the integrity of differences and question the desire for totalization.

    Arquetopia was officially established and registered as a nonprofit foundation in 2009, with a solid Board of Directors comprised of renowned scholars, artists, entrepreneurs, and community members fully committed to social transformation. We are proud to have established through our multiple residency programs a generous and culturally diverse space by hosting every year artists, scholars, and researchers from the Americas, Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia. Our experience has been enriched by the multiplicity of perspectives of our residents coming from many regions around the world and approximately 60 countries.

    Arquetopia is distinguished worldwide for its array of unique residency programs with substantial content. In contrast to various property rental schemes, tourist resorts, B&B's, and sublets elsewhere, our residency spaces function exclusively for productive art professionals, writers, and researchers and include structured, informative programs; a network of collaborative workspaces, institutions, and studios; and individualized project support.
  • Genesis - History - Identity After our founding directors, Mexican visual artist and curator Francisco Guevara and American classical musician Chris Davis, invested their hard work and entire personal savings, our small nonprofit arts foundation was born in the majestic, vibrant city of Puebla in 2009. Having initially functioned as an educational art center for inner-city youth, Arquetopia soon expanded its focus to offer international artist residency programs in under a year and then opened its second residency space in the historic city of Oaxaca in 2011. Arquetopia has since grown to offer the premier artist residency programs of Mexico and Latin America, with extensive collaborative networks in central and southern Mexico and now, Peru with Arquetopia's third residency space that opened spectacular Cusco in 2018. Our Artists-in-Residence have come from dozens of countries on six continents, and we are honored that many have returned for residencies at Arquetopia multiple times.
  • work - artistic , cultural and social practices - Disciplines Visual Arts – Art History – Writing – Literature
  • short & medium duration Residence(s) Our academic International Artist-in-Residence Programs offer competitive professional opportunities for emerging and mid-career, national and international artists, designers, curators, art historians, art educators, writers, journalists, cultural researchers, and graduate students age 22 and over. We offer residency programs, from two weeks to three months in duration.
SPACE'S AMENAGEMENT & ORGANISATION