How can we find true Mexican identity in Design? Is it something that already exists? Or is it something that is about to come to life? What is the point of defining and categorizing such identity?

The second round of exhibitions presented at Archivo Diseño up until May, included the curatorial proposal of the precincts’ Director, Regina Pozo, Here &There. The exhibition showed utilitarian items of different sources, contrasted to pieces of Mexican popular culture and their international design analogues. We get to contemplate a series of objects that share a same purpose, but have resulted into different shapes. Although we find ourselves staring, by definition, at the same object, the different choice of materials, the implementation of industrial or handcrafted industrial techniques, the technical resolution taken in order to solve the same issue, and even the smallest and most formal detail that tells them apart, make this exhibition an interesting and pensive exercise. The differences we can find, no matter big or small, raise a lot of questions around the spectator; questions necessary to come though a sign and symbol analysis that determine these and all objects in our surroundings. Which elements in these objects define their origin, their identity? Why is it that in spite of such a clear distinction of Mexican objects in this context we are still searching for the identity of Mexican design?

From an individual oriented point of view, speaking of identity implies talking about the processes developed throughout its construction. It could be thought of as the result of introjective and projective processes that part from our being bound up with objects. From this identification on, the subject can identify himself.^[1]

At a social level, identity infuses sense into a group and confers it a significative structure that allow it to become a unity. It is a process that confronts itself with any referenced culture; an historical process that’s constantly reshaping itself.^[2] In the field of design, it is necessary to merge these two perspectives to understand what puts together the identity of objects.

On the one hand, the designer as an individual goes shaping a personal signature marked by experiences, research, context and even desires and temper tantrums. Defining a personal signature is a long process throughout which one acquires experience and professional practice. I think this process should never end, for it depends on the constant exploration of new solutions and techniques. On the other hand, it can’t be considered an ongoing process when the designer has come to establish a style and finds a distinction that brands a creation as his, as a designer object. It is somehow understandable that once the designer has reached such a projective and formal maturity certain results will be expected, finally finding a place to rest from searching new explorations.

When it comes to anonymous design, the case of so many objects in this exhibition, it is liberating to find those features that characterize an object as Mexican, without carrying the weight of their creator or any of these signatures; the object contains them, because that was the way it was required and how they emerged. These are objects that turn into everyday life icons, lacking such intentions. They have simply merged with their surroundings and our lives, becoming part of our culture. These objects are part of the signs that define us, without the maker’s intention of being that way, nor our intention to adopt them. This trait, inherent to these objects, makes them an ideal reference and start point for an interpretation and study of the symbols that identify them as Mexican. Comparing these symbols to those found in other objects of different cultures is evidence enough to the elements that make them stand out. The differences between each of them result into features that bestow identity on the object.

Here & There presents us with these elements, open to the interpretation of the beholder. We could be dealing with details as evident as the motives found in ceramics throughout different regions -which even bear a cosmic burden- or it could be all about genius being applied to the making of a collapsible basket made of nothing else but wire, in which assembly and folds show traces found in other objects used in Mexican kitchens and even in handcrafted jewelry. Doing this comparative revision becomes necessary to find within them the symbols that we have tried so hard to reflect in out proposals. However, this is only one resource that should be made part of the search, but in the end it isn’t but another link in the chain of the unknown.

As we talk about Mexican design, we can’t stop at mere interpretation of the symbols of already existent objects. As mentioned before, social identity is an ever changing process that becomes both, history and present moment. The identity we perceive in the objects exhibited and the one defining each designer already exists; you can tell by merely looking at them. However, as a collective effort, it would seem that the designers’ guild necessity to find such identity has only been rewarded with frustration due to their incapacity to define it. Perhaps that identity shouldn’t only be looked for through the projection of several individual identities, projecting the designer as an individual or as the object itself. Is it truly identity what we are looking for? Shouldn’t we start by outlining an ideology before aspiring to reach our so anxiously desired definition of identity?

^[1] Reflexiones sobre la identificación y la identidad. Pst. Ma. Elena Fuentes Martínez.
^[2] Aguado J. C. y M. Portal, Identidad, Ideología y Ritual, Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, México, 1992, Pág. 47.