01 cárcamo expandido

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installation, public commission
▹ museo cárcamo de dolores, ciudad de méxico, méxico

sistema lerma cutzamala i, 2026
mixed textiles, digital embroidery
400 x 120cm

weave walk vi, 2026
found material, cotton yarn, woven in situ with an ashford sampler loom
110 x 20cm

sistema lerma cutzamala ii, 2026
mixed textiles
400 x 120 cm

weave walk v, 2026
found material, cotton yarn, woven in situ with an ashford sampler loom
110 x 20cm

photos by pauline escobar

cárcamo expandido is a material exploration of water: a journey through its metamorphic, multi-scalar, and political nature. made in collaboration with bernal pérez.
to begin with, the cárcamo de dolores museum serves as a gateway to the expanded geography that makes up the intricate web of ecosystems and infrastructure sustaining the water supply in the mexico city metropolitan area: watersheds protected by highly threatened forests, dams that fluctuate in the face of intensifying droughts, networks of pipes that transport water over more than 300 km, and wells that extract the resource from a subsoil worn down by decades of use. in this space, the work invites us to imagine water beyond its conventional form as a liquid; it proposes visualising it as a network and a system, as hybrid, vegetal and more-than-human bodies, as imperfect infrastructures and abstract legal systems.
through four textile pieces, the exhibition brings together these multiple facets by combining technologies based on contrasting approaches: satellite analysis via remote sensing and the manual craft of embroidery and weaving. in doing so, 'cárcamo expandido' constructs a decelerated space where the body and human scale encounter the artificial, disembodied viewpoint of the satellite. it invites a partial, specific, and sensitive gaze that sustains this exercise in re-signification.
sistema lerma cutzamala i is the first of two textile impressions examining mexico city’s hydraulic network. the central piece reads satellite imagery to pair a five-year water index decline at a specific dam with the vegetation emerging in its absence, challenging conventional ways of mapping water.
bordering embroideries expand the scale: the top maps the wider network of dams, while the bottom documents the urban encroachment threatening el bosque del agua.
sistema lerma cutzamala ii is the second of two textile impressions examining mexico city’s hydraulic network. the central piece illustrates the city's diverging water sources, mapping extraction points by quantity (size) and usage (yellow for public, green for agricultural, blue for industrial, and red for mixed private use). this dataset is overlaid onto a map showing the original borders of lago de texcoco, with the coloured zones highlighting the areas most prone to flooding. an embroidery at the bottom of the piece expands the view to show the full extent of the hydraulic infrastructure serving the city.
the manual textile process behind sistema lerma cutzamala i and ii brings the abstract satellite data down to a human scale, inviting a closer, more grounded look at the way water is distributed and used in the city.
weave walk v (canal nacional, with fernanda seoane and chenki, 28 march 2026) and weave walk vi (bosque de chapultepec II sección, with natalia berzunza on 31 March 2026) represent an alternative methodology for mapping environments. by weaving in situ discarded debris and natural matter collected at regular intervals, these walks constitute maps that capture what satellites cannot see.
cárcamo expandido is a textile and cartographic work conceived by giorgia chiarion and bernal pérez for 'aqüifera: festival del bosque de chapultepec'. its realisation was supported by the british council, the cárcamo museum in dolores and el bosque de chapultepec.
the project was realised between january and march 2026 in mexico city by giorgia chiarion, luz ramírez, susana ramírez, carmela ramírez, guadalupe de ramírez, natalia berzunza and dalzell román. the cartographic and remote sensing research was carried out by bernal pérez. the installation and assembly of the piece was carried out by santiago esquivel. paulina escobar was responsible for the photographic documentation. institutional coordination was handled by lucía enríquez with the support of leonardo viguri and the entire team at the cárcamo de dolores museum.
special thanks to karla niño de rivera, ruth best, david romero, fernanda seoane, moa bell, raúl aguilar, caroline husson and lily seckendorf.

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2026