ORDER AND PROGRESS

For a long-term period, visual artist Laureana Toledo has actively produced a series of pieces that engage the political, social, and cultural contexts of Mexico and the United Kingdom by addressing contemporary historical events, such as the development of both these nations, emphasizing the critical points of intersection between them. One of these points, which gives rise to the investigation, is the relationship between the English civil engineer and contractor Weetman Pearson and former Mexican President Porfirio Díaz. Their relationship promoted, among numerous others important public works, the construction of the Trans-Isthmus Railway, which sought to commercially link the port of Salina Cruz, Oaxaca, on the Pacific Ocean, with the port of Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz, located on the Gulf of Mexico. This was intended to forge Mexico as a direct competitor in the transportation and exportation of natural resources to the Panama Canal, which would open in 1914.

As an artist, Toledo is concerned in analogizing the documentary information kept at the Science Museum in London (the construction processes of the railroads, the inauguration of the railroad, the living conditions, images of the local landscape, telegrams about the imminent Mexican Revolution, the inventory of British possessions, etc.) with the current situation in the Mexican Isthmus region to produce a series of works that involve multiple historical and sociocultural paradigms as a platform, which are directly associated to colonialism, the exploitation of natural resources, and the implications of the idea of ​​progress as well as the late 19th century Western imaginary and the means by which its denotations have mutated up till now. The artist spent her early childhood in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, making this project an intention to investigate her personal relationship with the region. The work is primarily composed of a four-channel video, a tapestry, several photographs, and a publication. In the videos, we recognise various aspects of the region's landscape and realities in a spiral that descends from heaven to earth and abruptly to hellish glimpses, all lead by the migrant train, "La Bestia." The publication "Orden y Progreso" has the form of a newspaper, delving into topics such as colonialism and migration, foregrounding the connections between what is shown in the video and the objects on display.