Transcription
It is a pleasure to greet you on this special broadcast, completely live from none other than the Chopo University Museum. A venue that today is celebrating, is dressed in its finest, as it finds itself celebrating its first 50 years of life. Five decades already of being a pioneering space, even in hosting different cultural expressions, a space open even to counterculture and a venue for the diversity of artistic expressions in our country. And today, today is a special day because today, Thursday, August 21, 2025, the activities that will frame this celebration of the first 50 years of the Chopo Museum officially begin. This is the case of the exhibition "It was a tree and it became a forest," a show that will offer us a retrospective through the history, evolution, changes, characteristics, and particularities that have made this emblematic venue what it is today. Of course, it will also bring us closer to its history, but to the projects that have been such an important part of this venue, to the people and artists who have been part of its history and who have made it a space of cultural resistance, dialogue, and participation. And that is why today we are here from the dinosaur forum, one of the many spaces of the Chopo University Museum, where different artistic and cultural activities are carried out daily, but which today is a witness to this commemoration of the 50 years of the Chopo. We expect the participation of various authorities from our university. We leave you with this event that frames the 50 years of the Chopo University Museum. Let's listen. ...into a forest, 50 years of the Chopo University Museum. Next, we invite you to watch the following historical video of the museum. What do they have in common? Rock, contemporary art, feminist struggles, live arts, LGBTQ+ activism, and fanzines. Apparently nothing. But if you look a little closer, you'll notice that they all found shelter in the same place, the Chopo University Museum. For 50 years, El Chopo has been much more than a museum. It is a space that listens, that changes, that beats with its time. Although the history of its structure dates back to the early 20th century in Germany, after its arrival in Mexico, it housed the Japanese pavilion and later the National Museum of Natural History. It was on Tuesday, November 25, 1975, when it was reborn as what it is today, a vibrant and cherished cultural center. It was home to national rock when few gave opportunities to this musical genre. It also hosted the first gatherings of the LGBTQ+ community in Mexico, when it was urgent to have a space to say "here we are." It has been a point where live arts, performances, interventions, and scenic creations converge, overflowing traditional formats as a form of resistance. Since then, El Chopo has not stopped evolving. It has been an archive, a pore, a laboratory, a trench, a refuge, in other words, a social center disguised as a museum. Ideas, affections, struggles, and experiments have germinated here. It has promoted an important agenda of contemporary art, critical reflection, and above all, the possibility of imagining other futures. This story does not tell itself; it has been woven with the vision and work of those who have been in charge of its direction. Elena Urrutia, Ángeles Mareta, Arnold Belkin, Elva Macías, Monserrat Galí, Lourdes Monjes, Alma Rosa Jiménez, José Luis Paredes Pacho, Osol Enopalomín, but also by other agents such as Jorge Pantoja, José María Cobarrubias, Paloma Porraz, Pancho López, Mariana Gándara, Salvador Iris, and so many other voices that, whether from creation or management, made El Chopo an effervescent, critical, and generous space. Today, 50 years after that moment when it opened its doors, we celebrate not only its trajectory but its unique way of being in the world. Thanks to its vision, the museum ceased to be a container of objects to become a detonator of questions. Why doesn't El Chopo impose, it proposes; it doesn't exhibit, it dialogues; it doesn't just conserve, it transforms? That is why today, more than ever, we feel it alive and we feel part of it, thanks to those who have inhabited, defended, and imagined it, to those who have made the museum a territory for creativity, experimentation, learning, coexistence, dissidence, knowledge, and memory, because honoring the past is a way of continuing to walk, and the Chopo University Museum does so with firm steps, but with the furious gaze of one who never stops exploring. May more anniversaries come, and with them, new visitors and more accomplices. Half a century, an occasion to think about ourselves, but with the furious gaze of one who never stops exploring. May more anniversaries come, and with them, new visitors and more accomplices. Half a century, an occasion to think about ourselves. At this moment, we request that the members of the presidium be so kind as to occupy their places at the table. Presiding over this act is Dr. Leonardo Lomeli Vanegas, Rector of the National Autonomous University of Mexico. Dr. Silvia Yorguli Saucedo, President of El Colegio de México and member of the UNAM Governing Board. Dr. Rosa Beltrán Álvarez, Coordinator of Cultural Dissemination of UNAM. Master Sol Enaro Palomino, Director of the Chopo University Museum. And Abraham Cruz Villegas, artist and member of the Advisory Council. We greet the presence of university authorities, former directors, former directors, and the museum community, special guests, as well as those who accompany us today through social networks. Ladies and gentlemen, you are all most welcome. Master Sol Enaro Palomino will now speak. Good morning. Good morning, Dr. Leonardo Lomil Vanegas, Rector of UNAM. Dr. Rosa Beltrán Álvarez, Coordinator of Cultural Dissemination of UNAM. Dr. Silvia Elena Georguli, member of the UNAM Governing Board and President of El Colegio de México. Abraham Cruz Villegas, artist and representative of the Advisory Council of the Chopo University Museum. I also greet the members of the Governing Board, secretaries, and coordinators of the different university departments, colleagues and members of the cultural dissemination coordination and its subsystem, representatives of the diplomatic corps, former directors of the Chopo University Museum, friends and members of the artistic community, fellow workers of this museum of ours. Thank you very much for your presence. Where can we stop to evoke the rich and unique history of a university cultural venue that has accommodated so many projects, links, networks, and communities? The Chopo University Museum is one of the longest-standing and most dynamic cultural extension programs of the university, in addition to being an emblematic cultural option in the north of the university. With its characteristic towers, steel, and glass, this building from the early 1900s, which is university heritage, has housed museological projects in its different stages, from the Japanese pavilion and the National Museum of Natural History, to the opening of the Chopo University Museum on November 25, 1975. In these 50 years, revisiting the archives and external documents that record its history, it is evident that it has always been a social center disguised as a museum, or a porous and elastic museum that has served to accommodate the desires of the communities of its time. In the exercise of remembrance that we undertook, it was indispensable to recognize other agents who have been important to its history. Several of our halls bear the names of key figures such as Helen Escobedo, artist and director of the Department of Museums and Galleries of UNAM; Arnold Belkin, artist and former director of the museum; and the Juan José Gurrola forum, playwright and experimental agitator. In that spirit, we have wanted to rename three more halls to recognize the agency of other people who also marked its transition. Elena Orrutia, the first to be in charge of the museum at its opening and who promoted the first feminist theater contest there. Jorge Pantoja, a museum worker during Ángeles Maeta's management, and during whose period the first publication and record fair was held in 1980, which later, outside the museum, would take the name Tianguis del Chopo. And finally, José María Cobarrubias, an activist who, during Elva Macías's management in the late 80s, promoted the emblematic Lesbian Gay Cultural Week, which continues today under the name International Festival for Sexual Diversity, the FITZ. Different generations remember pigeons flying under its beautiful metal structure during its first decades. But beyond the anecdote, they highlight that this space has been and continues to be a place where a diversity of communities and generations converge to see an exhibition, attend a concert, witness a live arts program, watch a film, or take a free workshop. For half a century, the museum has housed, disseminated, generated, and offered a comprehensive set of cultural content and has defended the right to culture. Its art collection, comprising 367 works, is also a testament to its time and to the movements of internationalist solidarity, of which the museum was a part, especially during the 1980s. These pieces show how the museum was permeable to debates and responded to the crises of its time, and how it thought of itself or was thought of as a platform to make visible forms of violence and power in various contexts. Proof of this is the work "Las Madres de la Plaza de Mayo" by the printmaker Jesús Álvarez Amaya, a member of the TGP, which we are exhibiting today in the halls. And although this collection has stopped growing, the work, the last work incorporated, "Vuelo a jaula abierta" by the anonymous artist Hagerman, a habitable sculpture that reacts to the growth of plants and flowers, includes bird feeders, and offers shade and a resting place for its visitors, exemplifies not only new forms of artistic production but also how some artists conceive site-specific works, calling for policies of care and enjoyment. As cultural workers and custodians, in addition to the care of the historic building, the Disobedient Archive, and its beloved Fancinoteca, we are about to begin a project of study and socialization of the artistic collection thanks to the support of the National Bank of Mexico in the Art and Culture Development program in its sixth edition. Today, the exhibition "It was a tree and it became a forest" offers a first glimpse of the collection, and this gesture is just the beginning of what we are about to do in this regard. And yes, indeed, El Chopo is a tree, a type of poplar, and this street bore that name, but the transformation of the city renamed it Dr. Enrique González Martínez. However, the original name gave rise to the museum's surname and sparks our imagination to think about how that solitary tree could give rise to a forest. It did not remain an isolated entity, but rather connected us with others, and together they formed a landscape. It is also for this reason that we undertook an internal seminar to identify some of its most representative moments. We reintegrated its artistic collection, divided ourselves to review other collections, and regrouped to discuss how to articulate a curatorial script for it. I also want to say that the anniversary is not solely an act of remembrance; it is decidedly an opportunity to think about ourselves moving forward, to continue exercising its public and university character responsibly, precisely at a time when defending the right to culture is paramount. It is time to recalibrate and project on the horizon of management the active role of listening and accompaniment that we must promote. We will continue to defend imagination and responsible practice as cultural workers, where listening, willingness to learn, and collaboration will be the backbone of our projects. Celebrating 50 years is an occasion to think about ourselves, but above all to strengthen the cultural muscle and offer our commitment to continue being a social center disguised as a museum. At a time when hatred, individualism, and conservatism threaten, when the power of culture in social life is often delegitimized, our position is clear: to resist and defend the cultural and educational sector. We need cultural spaces where kinder, more empathetic, critical, co-responsible, freer worlds can germinate. We need spaces where diagonal and intergenerational crossings occur, where we inspire children and youth about the place that culture can occupy in their lives. We want to contribute collectively to the construction of the common, broaden narratives, articulate other narratives, collaborate with allies and future accomplices. There is no fixed or absolute plan to follow, nor a static management script. We are committed to an open horizon that constantly speaks to us and challenges us, to an institution willing to take risks, to approve, to back down, to continue, and to rethink its path as many times as necessary, that is, to think politically about the museum and our work. We want to recognize all the people who have brought their ideas, their time, and their energy to these spaces, all those who have participated in its history, those who have had the responsibility of guiding its processes from the position of director, its collaborators, external collaborators, the artists who have trusted this venue to share their artistic practice and their vision of the world, the enormous community of visitors for whom we work, but above all, each and every one of the base workers, officials, and trusted employees. My total gratitude to the beautiful team of the Chopo University Museum for their daily work. Thanks to the National Autonomous University of Mexico for understanding that the role of culture is and must be a unifying force. This is a museum for everyone, and that is why the celebration is also for everyone. Today we begin the festivities. We will see you next November 25th to blow out the conceptual candles. Mariana Gándara, you will always reverberate here. Fly high. Thank you very much. [Applause] [Applause] Dr. Silvia Yorguli Saucedo will now speak. Good afternoon. Well, what can I say after the words we have just heard? I feel extremely honored to be here, to be able to participate in this very important celebration. I thank you for the invitation and greet with great affection Dr. Leonardo Lomerí, Rector of UNAM, Dr. Rosa Beltrán, Coordinator of Cultural Dissemination, and Master Solenaro, Director of the Chopo University Museum. Thank you very much for those words, and I am also very pleased to share this panel with Abraham Cruz Villegas, artist and member of the Museum's Advisory Council. And well, I am very happy to be here with you and to share this ceremony commemorating the 50 years of the Chopo University Museum with the UNAM community, with colleagues, friends of this great project. And well, Sol Enaro's introduction reflects the vibrancy, the dynamism, and well, everything one would expect from a cultural project like the one we are celebrating today. I said that I am honored to participate in this commemoration of the 50th anniversary. I congratulate our highest institution of study, UNAM, for the construction and especially for the preservation of this space of art, resistance, and community. I recognize not only the celebration of memory with this event, but I also celebrate the inauguration and the exhibition today, which now, with the words, I understand much more the meaning of the exhibition's title. I find it very, very fortunate. And when I was preparing the words for this event and looked into it a bit, part of what I wanted to say is that in this 50th anniversary, what is seen is a dynamic, vibrant, daring cultural project, which is also reflected in its digital initiatives, in the design of the Disobedient Archive repository, in the promotion of public access to the museum's collection through its digitization. That is, a museum whose 50th anniversary we celebrate today, but which also projects a cultural initiative that is very much in line with being a space for memory with a renewal of the artistic offering that capitalizes on the opportunities of the times. And well, I also celebrate this entire focus and balance between the preservation of memory and, very assertively, open access, and well, I congratulate those who have led and who lead this great cultural project today. Why am I here? Well, because I believe that precisely in this exercise between memory and history, I feel very honored to be able to celebrate along with these 50 years a pioneering and enthusiastic figure who shared part of her intellectual trajectory between El Colegio de México and UNAM. This recognition that is made today to Elena Urrutia, promoter of projects, builder of institutions, detonator of questions. I believe that would be one of the characteristics if one wanted to describe Elena Urrutia. So, I am very pleased that a space within the museum that bears her name is being opened today, as you saw in the video. Well, she was the first director of the museum, but she was also one of the first women to hold a museum directorship in Mexico, preceded by Elen Escobedo at the University Museum of Arts and Sciences, by Can Marín at the Museum of Modern Art, and by Lina Ordena Güzes at the National Museum of History. So, we also celebrate the visibility of women in cultural projects and initiatives within UNAM and heading museums. There are several of the when one reviews Elena Rutia's intellectual trajectory, there are several notable projects from Elena's management at the Chopo University Museum. Some have already been mentioned, such as the organization of inaugural exhibitions, which also resulted in a book on the history of the building, two short story contests titled "El Cuento en el Museo del Chopo," as well as the recovery of a space intended to house film screenings and later round tables. And well, you also spoke about the feminist theater cycle, and it is very interesting because when one looks at Elena Orruiti's trajectory at the head of the museum and what would later be the work she would do in promoting the gender research agenda, one finds synergies and encounters. Elena Urrutia, a cultural journalist, collaborated for Radio UNAM in the 1970s. In 1972, she organized the conference series "Imagen y Realidad de la Mujer" at Casa de Lago with Alaide Fopa, Rosa Marta Fernández, Santiago Ramírez, and Carlos Moncibis. She hosted "Foro de la Mujer" on Radio UNAM during the 80s. Created in 1972 by Alay Fopa, "Foro de la Mujer" was declared in 2019 part of UNESCO's Memory of the World Register for being the first feminist radio series broadcast in Latin America. Elena Urrutia was also part of the editorial team of FEM magazine, a quarterly feminist publication, from its appearance in 1976. And I said that I believe that when one looks at Elena Orruti's time here and then her time at El Colegio, one finds this vision of the importance of art and discussions on gender issues, from the dissemination and appreciation of literature written by Latin American women, linked, for example, to the challenge of sexism in language, in collaborations in the 80s with Margo Glans at the fourth congress of Latin American women writers, with Aralia López González, who organized the first border colloquium "Women and Mexican and Chicana Literature, Cultures in Contact" at the College of the Northern Border. And in short, there are multiple examples of Elena Rutia's tireless work, the promotion of initiatives, and her drive to convene various figures. For El Colegio, this event is very significant because we consider Elena Urrutia to be part of the generation of women builders of El Colegio de México. Her name is included in a biographical dictionary of women in the construction of El Colegio de México, the founding generations, and of course, she is present as the founder and coordinator of the Interdisciplinary Program for Women's Studies, which was the precursor to today's Center for Gender Studies, but which also, I believe, required the vision of a pioneering woman, I will repeat, a detonator of questions who could convene great dialogues, interdisciplinary discussions across different areas of knowledge, who opened a research space in the gender agenda that was pioneering at the time, with nuances from literature, sociology, anthropology, history. And I believe that today, when they showed it in the video, one of the characteristics of how the gender research agenda was born at El Colegio de México, the presence of literature and the arts in this dialogue with the social sciences is something that leads us to this point of coincidence of Elena Urrutia as a promoter of cultural projects, but also with a great commitment to gender equality. And here, almost to conclude, I would like to take an interview we conducted with her son, Óscar Urrutia, precisely when we were in the process of assembling the dictionary, and he said that for Elena Urrutia, the pursuit of gender equity was fundamental; it was understood as fundamental for creating a just society, and that it was necessary to recognize the fragility of the conquests towards this end. And I believe, as you say, in many fields where one already saw progress, we are seeing regressions, so that demonstrates that fragility in the conquests that must continue to be defended, and she herself pointed out that the gains made for equitable participation must continue to be defended. So, as you can see, for us at El Colegio de México, there are many reasons to celebrate this 50th anniversary of the Chopo Museum as a space of memory and history, and in this case, the inauguration of the Elena Orrutia hall as part of this "overflowing" – the word used by Gabriela Cano and Saúl Espino – to refer to the need to make evident the participation of women in institutional construction, as is the case today with Elena Urrutia and this hall that honors her memory, recognizes her legacy, and makes visible the contribution of women in such important, creative, disruptive cultural and intellectual endeavors as the Chopo Museum. So, I have nothing left but to reiterate my gratitude to the Rector, Leonardo Lomení, to Rosa Beltrán, to Solenaro, and well, thank you very much. [Applause] Let's listen to Abraham Cruz Villegas's speech. Good day. Thank you very much. In truth, I spent a very long time writing something that I don't think I will read because everything has already been said. So, the truth is, it was very difficult for me to write because everything went into a very sentimental and emotional territory, but in the end, I think I will take that path. Starting with gratitude for the existence of the museum, for the people who inhabit it, the communities that make it exist, and for Sol, in this case, for inviting me to be part of the Advisory Council. First of all, I must say that I am a university student; I studied at Prepa 5. My student ID number is 8333073-7. I studied at the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters, majoring in Pedagogy, due to a romantic disappointment, because art schools seemed to me, and still seem to me, very bad, and that's why I ended up working in them since '91. I was a professor at ENAP, the National School of Plastic Arts, and since then I have not stopped being in the classroom and being involved with the work of my younger colleagues, learning from them all the time. The next part has to do with something more protocolary, more bureaucratic, which is that in '92, well, I started exhibiting as an artist professionally in '87, and many times, as happened to our entire generation, in improvised spaces, in spaces that we had to invent ourselves, due to a lack of recognition from institutions, galleries, and the entire spectrum of what we called art, and which still seems not to be. And yet, some exceptions were constructive and generous. That was the case of the Chopo Museum. In 1992, I had the opportunity to travel abroad for the first time to show my work thanks to a cultural exchange from the Chopo Museum to Quebec. Artists came from there, and some of us from here went there. That was under the direction of Montserrat Gali. And later, in '97, under the direction of Lourdes Monjes Cajastá, I traveled to Buenos Aires also for an exchange with artists who also came from our generation to exhibit here at El Chopo, and we went to the Museo Banco Patricios there. Well, in short, there were a series of exchanges of attitudes, of course, as well as ways of making art and understanding our responsibility in this society as creators. When the artists came here, one of them, Daniel Ontiveros, displayed on a wall in the main hall a collection of balaclavas he had used in the Falklands War. And here, of course, it was interpreted in a radically different way, just three years after the Zapatista uprising. So, those kinds of overlaps and interpretive, epistemological, hermeneutic, as we call them, rebellious, also take on new meaning when the public sees them, when we configure them from our subjectivity, which is what I am trying to do now in front of you. Today's invitation card is beautiful; it was made by an eccentric artist, Federico Arana, a rocker, a draftsman, an eternal one, and he writes a very nice phrase there, which I don't know if he wrote it, but it says: "Where the dinosaur is no longer, now, in addition to an extraordinary building, you can find theater performances, puppet shows, cinema, free courses and workshops, jazz concerts, Afro-Caribbean music, new song, exhibitions, and many other things." I find it incredible because in that last phrase, everything fits. Exactly. And I think that starting from 1987, when the first Lesbian Gay Cultural Week was celebrated, a spectrum, a rainbow of many possibilities was literally opened to us, both discursive and formal, conceptual, but also political, from El Chopo. The Tianguis del Chopo also, which was not called that, was a fair for the exchange of records and books where only bartering occurred, it also became a flag for my generation, for our generation. One of the directors who is here, my dear Pacho, Pepe Paredes, we have grown up together, we have also lived together in many ways. He invented the Fancinoteca during his tenure, which is a way of looking elsewhere, what El Chopo does all the time: look at the marginal, look at what doesn't exist in the institutional, in the protocol; it's here and has always been here. That is what is incumbent upon us, not only as a part of El Chopo that I am and as a university student, but also as a citizen who is political, but also an intellectual, but also an artist. I want to mention a couple of things also from a personal perspective that have been fundamental in my formation and deformation, if you want to call it that, both aesthetically and politically. The exhibitions that some people like Paula Bis have had here, I tried to find some record of it and couldn't, but I am convinced that I saw it here because I came with my father. I remember he greeted Arnold Belkin on the stairs, at the entrance, who knew each other from working at Wam. My father told me, "They call it the Chopo Museum," and I said, "Not really, for any other reason than how Belkin spoke," who also founded a monumental graphics workshop and made a mural at Wam. In short, this intersection of paths from all these people, Elena Urrutia, Helen Escobedo too, of course, have been fundamental. The presence of artists who have strengthened the scene of things that were also outside the box, like performance. Pancho López is also here, who has been a fundamental figure in the defense of this language and this tool of knowledge for generating questions, because El Chopo is the best place to ask questions. Enrique Yes, my dear friend, who came from the south to have his first solo exhibition here at El Chopo. Of course, he came for a sculpture competition in Toluca, if I'm not mistaken, but he stayed, and here he had his first institutional exhibition in his life, and he's still here. Thank you. My entire generation was nourished by everything that happened here, including Vecindad, Botellita de Jerez, The Three Souls My Mind, sorry, which is something very different. And I think that by talking about the university, which I am very proud to be a part of, in its institutional objectives, it speaks of education. There is a triad that is not only semiotic or semantic, but also political. It is education, research, and the dissemination of culture. In this case, El Chopo fully fulfills all of them, and in a fabric that has always started from the community. The free workshops have been the cradle and the axis of what happens in this museum, the neighborhood, I mean, the area that is not close to UNAM, the area that is not close to, let's say, the tourist attractions in the north, what we used to call the peripheries, and not only geographically, but also dissidences, resistances, and we continue in that. I want to finish by reading a small paragraph, the last one from my text, to conclude. El Chopo is the museum of rock and punk, when those musics were still demonized. It is the museum of the first record and book exchange fair. It is a community neighborhood site with a specialized bookstore from the beginning, also with independent alternative publications and musical and literary works, and other theoretical, historical, and documentary works related to the projects presented here. Graffiti and stickers also fit in El Chopo. More recently, it is also the place that houses a fantastic fanzinoteca. It is the place where the creations of people we continue to call indigenous are shown. Also of the homeless. It is also a museum where the expressions of displaced people, migrants, and refugees should have a place. It is a social center disguised as a museum, as we say here, but it is one of situated thought. It is also a window for emerging creative youth. I can attest to that. It is the Museum of Live Arts as a set of experimental practices that trace complicities between theater, dance, plastic arts, and artistic research that turn their gaze towards Central and South America, towards the other that is me, without losing sight of memory, its policies, and the configuration of its archives, which should be those of the forms that inclusion, tolerance, and diversity take in space, but also resistance. Long live the Chopo Museum. [Applause] Dr. Rosa Beltrán Álvarez will now speak. Good afternoon, Mr. Rector, Mrs. Secretary Patricia Dávila, Silvia Yorguli, Solenaro, Abraham Cruz Villegas, to all of you. To my colleagues from Cultural Dissemination, to the young people from the youth council, to all those who accompany us today. Abraham, you started in a very disruptive way because studying pedagogy because you came from a romantic disappointment, I had never heard that before, but I imagine that pedagogy also teaches more or less what to do with heartbreak. I also want to start in a disruptive way, but emotionally, because El Chopo invites that, for external events and the community to enter the museum and not the other way around. I would like to ask all of you to please stand and observe a minute of silence for Mariana Gándara, our beloved collaborator from Cultura UNAM, who passed away yesterday at the age of 41. At El Chopo, we will always remember her work in the coordination of performing arts, from where she promoted live arts to open artistic borders with intelligence, vivacity, and commitment. She wrote plays, directed the Bergman Chair. Fly, fly high, Mariana, you are gone, but you remain. Thank you very much. [Applause] [Applause] I would also like to send a very affectionate greeting and give that greeting in person to fundamental people in the history of the venue, such as Ángeles Mareta, former director of the museum, who promoted the first rock contest, the record and book fair, as well as the construction of the forum. To Lourdes Monjes, who opened the museum to internationalization with great exhibitions and massive concerts that placed it at the forefront. Elena Urrutia has already been mentioned, so I won't repeat it; she was the very first director and a pillar in gender culture. To Alma Rosa Jiménez, under whose administration the most important intervention to the museum's spaces occurred, which, however, did not halt its activities. I can attest to that. Work carried out in conjunction with architect Enrique Norten, an essential figure in the architectural intervention. Thank you for being here. To José Luis Paredes Pacho, creator of the emblematic Fancinoteca and the catalog of this fantastic venue, where more than a dissident and disobedient archive, it holds the history of 50 years of life since this museum opened. With Pacho, we also did some fabulous mischief, like bringing the voguing parade to La Espiga, which is not a job for the faint of heart and was fantastic; he is an expert in urban culture. Thank you very much, Pacho, for being here. Undoubtedly, to Sol Enaro, who has made this museum shine, who, like a true Sherlock Holmes, delved deep into the archives to sift through documents of all kinds, including, for example, the phonotheque, so she has the recordings of those first Spanish rock concerts. She did exhaustive work to understand and revive and bring us these 50 years of counterculture and dissidence. It is fantastic to think that there is a museum that functions exactly the opposite of how all others function. Here, it is the community that, through its requests, but also through its activism and the history written with the body, determines what will be brought, what will be exhibited. And it is not easy work for those who direct it to capture all of this because they have to ensure that it does not become fossilized, but rather that this work is made visible. That is El Chopo. To the entire large community that has given life over five decades, thank you for accompanying us in this celebration. Half-century anniversaries are a propitious time to reflect with perspective on the past. Historical memory is an essential component of institutions, as those who preceded me have said, as it is also for individuals and communities, because it is about recognizing ourselves, about making the lived experience present, about strengthening our identity. In a brief review, I mention some of the historical milestones that made this space a cultural reference in the north of Mexico City. El Chopo embodies our university's capacity to reinvent itself. What was born as an industrial exhibition pavilion, it was said to be the Japanese pavilion in the Porfirio Díaz era and was brought from Düsseldorf, and later housed the museum, the Natural History Museum, which was the most important in the country at that time. Today it is a vibrant cultural center that has consolidated itself as a beacon for contemporary creation, and this work is due to the university, to UNAM's rescue of the venue, but also to the purpose of what was happening here thanks to the then Rector Soberón, who did so much for culture. On November 25, 1975, a new life began as a museological venue, and since then it has maintained vibrant activity in its defense of the right to culture and attending to one of UNAM's guiding principles, the expansion of cultural dissemination, the explosion of its margins and borders. El Chopo has cultivated the exceptional virtue of being simultaneously an archive and a laboratory. As its current director, Sol Enaro, well defines it, this phrase will remain for the future: It is a social center disguised as a museum, where subterranean memories coexist with the most vital expressions of contemporary art. Looking at its history, at El Chopo, we recognize the unique quality of truly living spaces, their capacity to be inhabited by the urgencies of the time. Having opened its doors to rock in the 80s, Spanish rock, when few places accommodated these expressions of youth and historically excluded and marginalized social groups, Abraham Cruz Villegas also mentioned punk, it was a space that illuminated the beginnings of the celebrated Chopo cultural fair, which today is an iconic reference of counterculture in Mexico and, since 2023, was recognized as intangible cultural heritage of Mexico City. It became home to the LGBTQ+ community, hosting the Lesbian Gay Cultural Week, which later transformed into the International Festival for Sexual Diversity. And in this space, the cultural jornadas against AIDS and an important scene of experimentation around live arts were held. The profound renovation of its facilities in 2010 allowed for the creation of projects such as the documentation center and media library, which houses a vast collection of artistic and social memories and has been expanded with the Fancinoteca and the Disobedient Archive. It also benefited from new facilities to house the Juan José Gurrola Dinosaur Forum and the emblematic Chopo cinema. This museum has woven a unique network of creative complicities, becoming an inspiring model for rethinking cultural dissemination, artistic production, non-academic training through its free workshops, and as a den for communities and explorations around the time we live in. UNAM is a pioneering institution in many aspects of culture and artistic creation. The most avant-garde expressions occur here, as does dissident thought, because we are a critical and autonomous institution. El Chopo presents itself to us as the space that every great university needs. One that reminds us that knowledge is not only produced in classrooms but also in places where creation dares to ask, to challenge, and to imagine possible futures. It is the living demonstration of how culture can be that necessary bridge between academia and the street, between theory and practice, between memory and the intervention of the future. With its trajectory, El Chopo illuminates the path to continue building a more relevant, bolder UNAM, more connected with the challenges of our time, with intergenerational crossings, and more committed to the diversity of expressions that make up Mexico's cultural fabric. These 50 years of the museum are a celebration, as is also its continuity and permanence, its changes of skin, but always, always its committed role. May its life continue as a forum, exhibition hall, laboratory, meeting place, den, or as a social center disguised as a museum. Long live the Chopo Museum, a space that looks towards the future, and here's to another 50 years. Thank you. [Applause] Let's now listen to the words of Dr. Leonardo Lomeli Vanegas, Rector of the National Autonomous University of Mexico. Good afternoon, Dr. Silvia Yorguli Saucedo, President of El Colegio de México and member of our university's Governing Board. Dr. Rosa Beltrán Álvarez, Coordinator of Cultural Dissemination. Master Solenaro Palomino, Director of the Chopo University Museum. Abraham Cruz Villegas, artist and member of this Museum's Advisory Council. I also greet the President of the Board of Trustees, Dr. Mario Luis Fuentes, the Secretary General, Dr. Patricia Dávila, the secretaries and officials of the central administration and the Coordination of Humanities and Cultural Dissemination who accompany us, the former directors of this cultural venue, and of course, the large community of the Museum.
From El Chopo. Commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the Museo Universitario del Chopo invites us to reflect on the way in which our university has conceived and exercised its role in society, not only as a space for the generation and transmission of knowledge, but also as a public actor that accompanies cultural processes and transformations and that promotes imagination, creativity, divergent thinking, and the construction of identity and collective meanings. Its origin responded to the need to open a sphere of free encounter, capable of welcoming cultural and artistic expressions, especially those that were emerging or marginal, granting them not only social recognition, but also the conditions to explore and develop fully. The iron structure of this building, designed in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century and brought to Mexico by Siriano, had various uses: a pavilion for industrial art, the headquarters of the National Museum of Natural History, and for several years a silent enclosure. But in 1975, with its reopening as part of the university's heritage under the administration of Rector Guillermo Soberón, greetings, by the way, to his daughter Gloria who also accompanies us today, it found its vocation, not only to safeguard objects, devices, and discourses, but to allow itself to be challenged and transformed by the paradigms of each era. Since then, El Chopo has consolidated itself as a field of experimentation, innovation, and exchange. Events, such as those already mentioned by those who preceded me, have re-signified it as a fundamental platform for the cultural, political, and social freedom of Mexico. None of this happened by chance. It was the fruit of institutional will and a conscious understanding that culture cannot remain confined to the canon, but must open up, be porous, and embrace new paradigms. In its trajectory, El Chopo has experienced stages of growth and resistance, always sustained by the communities that have nourished it with lucidity and generosity. Those who have coordinated it have known how to build their own model that, from its fissures, welcomes bodies, voices, and aesthetics outside of dominant molds. Undoubtedly, its remodeling in 2010 marked a turning point. The museum was renovated, expanded, and equipped with technological infrastructure to strengthen its curatorial, scenic, and documentary production. For these reasons, El Chopo does not pursue neutrality nor does it submit to the logic of spectacle. Its purpose has been and will continue to be to accompany cultural manifestations that arise in emerging scenarios, to recognize dissident aesthetics, and to maintain a dialogue that is sometimes uncomfortable, but always fruitful, with the contradictions of our present. In addition, it has woven a deep relationship with its territory. It not only intertwines with the heart of Santa María la Ribera, but also with the urban dynamics that surround it. It is an actor that recognizes and cohabits in the neighborhood dimension, assuming the tensions between social reconfiguration and community roots, between the heritage and the everyday. It does not impose itself; it recognizes and intervenes from a situated and respectful perspective. In this sense, that on this anniversary three of its rooms adopt the names of key figures in its development, such as Elena Urrutia, Jorge Pantoja, and Chema Cobarrubias, reminds us that cultural institutions are built from closeness, constant work, and care. Over five decades, the Museo Universitario del Chopo has been a link between UNAM and sectors historically excluded from cultural conversation. Its relevance is not only patrimonial or symbolic; it is pedagogical. It has shown us that another museum model is viable, one where the archive is the critical tool, the programming is not vertical, and youth are not passive audiences but living interlocutors. Today, El Chopo persists as a crucible where memories converge. Each project, exhibition, and proposal is articulated with the fabric of communities that have appropriated it and given it life. In this dynamic lies its greatest lesson. Culture is not ornament, but substance. It is not simple ceremony, but a field of dispute. It is not privilege, but a right. And it should not be destined to impose consensus, but to stimulate plurality. From the University of the Nation, we reaffirm our commitment to this and to all the cultural venues of our institution. We recognize their symbolic and material value and trust in their capacity to continue imagining and creating possible horizons. In this conviction, our duty is to guarantee the future of El Chopo with a strategic vision and to consolidate its relevance as a living space open to the possibilities that the future presents us. Congratulations on these first 50 years. For my race, the spirit will speak. [Applause] University. Gloria. Gloria to Jesus Jesus. Gloria. It is thus that we conclude this ceremony. We invite you to tour the exhibition. To all of you, thank you very much. Good afternoon. [Music]