Contemporaneity and Composition in Mexican Design

Abstract

This essay tracks a series of ethnographic episodes at the intersections of heritage and design in Mexico today. Rather than draw conclusions about the present and future of Mexico’s cultural patrimony, these moments instead illustrate key tensions around the country’s cultural politics in practice, the histories that condition them, and strategies for grappling with this landscape today. Drawing on the concept of contemporaneity and the idea of composition as a critical and creative technique, it outlines emerging formations within the world of design that seek to articulate new possibilities within a cultural field historically dominated by official interests and policies.