Horizons

From March 1 to March 31, 2024, Mexican artist Daniel Ventura will undertake a residency in Breda. This work period is part of his long-term project Horizons, which previously took place in Mexico and is now developing a Dutch counterpart.

The residency of Daniel Ventura, Mexico, consists of two parts: an online publication and a work period in Breda. The first part of the collaboration began in 2023 from Mexico as a research initiative to explore how Daniel can make his artistic and creative process shareable through text and image. Graphic representations and conceptual reflections on the ideas of ‘roots’ and ‘foundations’—a central theme in his work—shape the content of the online publication on Witte Rook’s website.

For the second part of the residency, Daniel will travel from Mexico City to Breda to carry out his Horizons project on-site. During the month of March, he will explore the environment and architecture of Breda to understand how the city has been shaped. This research will inspire a site-specific transformation in his work, questioning and redefining the concept of living space. His sculptural process will be combined with drawings, maps, and graphic annotations. These works will come together in a presentation at the StadsGalerij.

Horizons is an ongoing project in which Daniel conceptualizes the horizon as a synthesis of the landscape. It is, on the one hand, a complex reflection on the idea of ‘inhabiting’ and, at the same time, a practical construction exercise in the act of building. Formally, the project focuses on developing various sculptural construction systems based on different architectural techniques, emphasizing those that are not commonly found in major cities but that take into account the environmental impact of their development. Theoretically, the project explores the concept of géographicité (urban geography), interpreted as the movement across the earth and the world that humans have imagined and built while traveling through it—but primarily as the relationship between humans and inhabited space. The goal of the project is to unlearn the way we understand the concept of ‘the city,’ by approaching it instead as an individual and social construction of space. This ties into the questioning of the space in which one belongs versus the space one owns, regardless of context.

Daniel is a Mexico-based artist trained at the Faculty of Art and Design at UNAM Mexico. He is currently developing a plastic, visual, and conceptual investigation into the relationships between art and the environment, particularly in the conception of landscape, city, and architecture. He approaches these relationships and ideas as a constantly transforming structure. His work is experimental and engages with drawing, printmaking, sculpture, and installation as strategies across multiple disciplines to manifest the evidence he seeks to communicate. Daniel regularly exhibits in solo and group exhibitions and participates in residencies and workshops.

Until October 2022, Witte Rook operated a traditional Artist in Residence program, inviting artists from both the Netherlands and abroad to live and work at its location in Breda. Since this space was temporary, Witte Rook has since developed a program focused on artistic research, experimentation, and collaboration. Just like in its previous AIR program, this project supports connections between international, national, and local artists, fostering network development, interdisciplinary work, and engagement with the local environment.

This residency is part of Horizons, a long-term project in which various meanings of the horizon merge in synthesis with the landscape. This residency and presentation have been made possible with the support of the Municipality of Breda, the Mondriaan Fund, and FONCA (the Mexican National Fund for Arts and Culture).