AZUL EHRENBERG
Azul Ehrenberg (Mexico / Netherlands, 1997) is an interdisciplinary artist based in between Amsterdam and Mexico. In her work she dominantly uses a combination of selfmade paper, visual poetry and moving image. Personal archives and self shot images are often at the core of her works. But as past and present narrations are an integral part of life, she also explores the impact these can have on our perception by intervening existing content, in order to create a new context or form.
Her working method has never followed a classical structure, but has evolved experimentally, touching upon topics such as heritage, memory; its illusions and the emotional and intellectual resonance such themes can evoke in the public. She invites the viewer to reflect upon solitude and the contrasts between modernity and tradition, drawing inspirations from personal and broader cultural themes and traditions. Often, she blurs the line between reality and imagination. It is her way to preserve the beauty of a certain originality that might otherwise perish in forgetfulness.
In this project, we research the visual representation of national symbols on a symbolic level, through the view of money bills coming from Mexico.
Since mid 20th Century, bills started to be printed in Mexico to be used as an official currency. Firstly printed on cotton paper, the bills featured images that represented national heroes, revolutionary figures or emblematic places. The Angel of Independence was a recurring figure, alongside revolutionary heroes like Jose María Morelos, Emiliano Zapata and the well-known artist Frida Kahlo, as well as the last Aztec emperor Moctezuma.
Nevertheless, since 2020 a new “Family of bills” has been circulating amongst the streets and wallets of Mexico; one that is filled with local animals and endemic species. This new bills feature dear species in extinction such as the Axolotl, the Blue whale and the Jaguar. The Monarch Butterflies are also part of the row, shifting the narrative of national symbols to the lenses of ecology, which led us to ask the question, what is the relation between animals and money? How is this relation played out in a symbolic sense and a material one?
In times like ours where we face a crisis on an economic and ecological level, we found several paradoxes in the representation of animals as national emblems, and their actual condition in precarious states. One of the paradoxes being money and profit in many cases the cause that leads to the exploitation of environments where those same animals grapple to exist. Such as the Axolotl in the lake of Xochimilco, where the area has been rather polluted and neglected to the point where only a dozen of Axolotls are living in their endemic environment. Or the case of the Jaguar, where illegal hunting and deforestation have led to a decline in the population, also due to projects led by the State and the Corporate sector, such as the Train Maya.
The study of bills that we undertake take a backflip on the official narrative and its representation to counteract with showing the actual state of collapse in the environment and the failure of the State in practices of care and sustainability. Rather than an archaic idealisation of these animals, we approach the dystopian side effects on the present (and future) scenario, where the occurrence of forest fires and floods seem closer than we might want to accept. Therefore, we’ve created fictional bills that put together all these paradoxes, and unlock possibilities to trace the intertwined cycles of money, animals and crisis. The bills are drawn collaboratively, and screenprinted by Victoria on handmade paper made by Azul out of agave and maiz.
