Vica Pacheco seeks to create a dialogue between animism, ritual, and technology in her series of works Animacy. Revolving around the whistling vessel, a hydraulic sound instrument that existed in pre-Columbian times throughout Mesoamerica, the series presents a symbiosis between two types of technology: one contemporary, electronic and digital; and the other pre-Columbian, made of mud, fire, air, and water. 

A collection of ceramic instruments which the artist produced at EKWC form the basis for two new works: the kinetic installation Mitote (2023) and the dance performance Ollin (2023) created with Siet Raeymaekers, Francesca Mariano, and Fernanda Soberón. The word mitote comes from Nahuatl mitotiqui, meaning “dancing,” and from itotia, meaning “to dance”. Mitote is a term from contemporary Mexican popular culture used to designate a riot or a party. Earlier the term was associated with a Mayan creation myth. In Mitote the artist conceived a kinetic sculpture to which she refers as the Bionic Mangrove, where zoomorphic creatures emit their songs thanks to the energy of the components of this tree. In the performance Ollin, meaning “constant movement” in Nahuatl, the movement of the vessels and their sounds is generated by the bodies of three dancers in combination with the Bionic Mangrove. With this encounter Pacheco seeks to produce a ritual in which minimalist and repetitive movements and sounds transport the listener towards an expanded state of consciousness.

Ana Victoria, aka Vica Pacheco, was born in Oaxaca, southern Mexico in 1993. She studied art at La Esmeralda, México City before graduating from Villa Arson, Nice in 2017. Her practice is rooted in experimental music and composition, but she also has a plastic practice working through ceramics and 3D animation. Her work is above all eclectic and energetic, inspired by mythological crossbreeding, prehispanic technologies, and syncretism. She likes to arrange the most heterogeneous or hazardous elements between them to produce sound performances and installations. Pacheco lives and works in Brussels.

Mitote and Ollin are commissioned by iii in collaboration with Rewire, Amare, Overtoon, STUK, and iMal.

After Rewire, the kinetic installation Mitote will remain in Amare until April 23rd.

Proximity Music: Visceral Acts takes place from 7-9 April. Find out more here.