16th edition: “Memory, Reenchantments, Transitions”

Coordinated by Elvira Espejo, Julieta González, and Mauricio Marcin.

The International Symposium on Contemporary Art Theory (SIT_AC) is a program by PAC—a non-profit dedicated to fostering discussion and the development of contemporary art in Mexico—which brings together local and international voices around diverse themes to promote critical reflection and knowledge dissemination on contemporary art.

This program’s sixteenth edition will take place from October 8 to 10, 2026 at the Museo Universitario del Chopo, Mexico City. It’s titled “Memory, Reenchantments, Transitions” and is coordinated by Elvira Espejo, Julieta González, and Mauricio Marcin. Its central proposition is to explore epistemologies, cosmologies, experiences, and aesthetics beyond the framework of Western modernity—insufficient when it comes to accounting of artistic manifestations emerging from other traditions and epistemic systems, as well as from dissident thinking models non compatible with the ideas of a universal canon. 

In response to the exhaustion of these frameworks, SIT_AC XVI examines the emergence of pluriversal and cosmopolitical visions recognizing non-human agencies, territorial situated visions, and the practices and experiences of Indigenous populations, as well as their ecosophical knowledge, and critical reformulations of technology within their context.

The first working axis, Memory: Cultural and Visual Resistance, coordinated by Elvira Espejo, delves into the wide range of perspectives held by different indigenous communities around the visual and cultural languages. Highlighting the importance of territorial, cultural, and linguistic struggles as a vital part of the persistence of non-Western languages, this axis also proposes an approach to the preservation of these legacies, as well as a discussion on their relationship with institutions, spaces and collections dedicated to their study and safeguarding.

The second axis, Reenchantments: Art and the Cosmopolitical Turn, coordinated by Julieta González, departs from the irruption of Indigenous, ancestral, and non-Western practices into the traditional field of art, proposing not merely an expansion of the canon, but rather an epistemic and ontological rupture: a challenge to the frameworks of knowledge and regimes of value from which art institutions have historically operated. Cosmopolitics presents a pluriverse of ontologies in tension; what is at stake is not consensus but the coexistence of incommensurable worlds. To face this rupture, museums and other contemporary art institutions can—or cannot—transform themselves: what does it mean to adopt a cosmopolitical perspective? And what does that adoption demand in terms of institutional shaping, curatorial methodologies, and aesthetic categories?

Finally, Transitions: Bodies, Technologies, and Territories, coordinated by Mauricio Marcin, inquires into the bodily and territorial afflictions produced by the siege of technocapitalism, seeking to create a collective space where artistic practices, subaltern knowledge, and dissident modes of existence questioning the modern-colonial-capitalist order can be articulated as contact zones between ancestral expressions, situated localisms, and contemporary experimentations leading to a new configuration of creative freedom and resistance.

SIT_AC XVI: “Memory, Reenchantments, Transitions” is conceived as an space for encounter and exchange of knowledge and experiences, enabling critical and collective thinking on the role of the arts in the world we inhabit. In addition to lectures and panel discussions, this edition includes a program of parallel activities, such as theatre performances, projections, and open dialogue spaces designed to promote other forms of collectively generating knowledge.

Curatorial coordination: Elvira Espejo, Julieta González, and Mauricio Marcin

Participants: Yásnaya Aguilar, Vanessa Andreotti, Enrique Arriaga, Denilson Baniwa, Calpulli Tecalco (Angélica and Fernando Palma), Alfonso Díaz Smith, Elvira Espejo, Julieta González, Max Jorge Hinderer Cruz, Rosi Huaroco, Camila Marambio, Mauricio Marcin, Carlos Papá, Itzhel Razo, Naomí Rincón-Gallardo, María Belén Sáez de Ibarra, Bárbara Santos, Olinda Silvano, Ariadna Solis, Cristine Takuá, Patricia Uh, Rember Yahuarcani, and Yutindudi (Rolando Hernández, Carlos Edelmiro and Héctor Ramírez)

Program coordination: Esteban King
Visual identity: Estudio Herrera

Special thanks to CulturaUNAM/Museo Universitario del Chopo for hosting this edition. 

SIT_AC is organized under the supervision of a committee integrated by art professionals: Eduardo Abaroa, Yásnaya Aguilar, Issa Ma. Benítez Dueñas, Magda Carranza Valles, Carmen Cuenca, Tatiana Cuevas, Aimée Labarrère de Servitje, Mariana Munguía, Haydeé Rovirosa, Patricia Sloane, and with the interlocution of PAC office staff.