Beyond memory
By Ana Julia Aguado February 8, 2008 San Miguel de Allende

Art Lecture
Light and Matter
Tomas Burkey
Wed, Feb 13, 8–9:30pm
Ana Julia Aguado Gallery
Plaza Principal 18 2nd floor

Chilean artist Tomas Burkey’s talk “Light and Matter”

relates to past and present works, including his current exhibition, “Convergencias Colectivas,” on display at the Ana Julia Aguado Gallery. This talk is part of a series that the gallery will hold in coming months, featuring artists and their creative process or influences. 

For Burkey the show is a culmination of exercises which begin with memory. 

“Everything stems from abstraction. This is the beginning, the world of possibilities. Memory is the cognizance of what we are born with, what we have inherited from our ancestors… from our own personal history as well as the relationship we had with ourselves before we took form in this dimension. This is a journey within ourselves and within our memory. From this process we take our present form. In the awakening of my memory, I find that our history has been written and imbedded in our collective consciousness.”

This and other subjects will be discussed in this next conference where the artist will be showing images from different periods of his career. 

The Ana Julia Aguado Gallery is located on the first floor of the Edificio de la Conspiración, opposite the Jardín. 

Monarch butterfly

Find out about the migration of the Monarch butterfly at the lecture by Arturo Morales Tirado

Friday, February 15, 3pm, Teatro Santa Ana, Biblioteca Pública, Insurgentes 25, 50 pesos.

Botanical illustrator speaks on Tibet

Lecture
Botanical Illustration in Tibet
Fri, Feb 8, 4pm
Sala Quetzal
Biblioteca Pública
Insurgentes 25
50 pesos

Dianne Aigaki, a botanical artist visiting friends in San Miguel for the winter, has lived in Dharamsala, India at the foot of the Himalayas since 1996, working as a volunteer consultant for the Tibetan Exile Government.” She will be speaking here on Tibet, the flora, the environment and the people.

Besides training people worldwide to write funding proposals and project management plans, Aigaki has been an artist for 35 years, working in acrylics, watercolor, stained glass, print making and cyanotypes. Her specialty in botanical illustration is wildflowers growing in Tibet at altitudes of 11,000–18,000 feet. She spends eight weeks each summer in eastern Tibet, documenting flora and leading botanical illustration/photography tours.

Why is the US in Iraq?
By Cliff DuRand 

Panel
Why is the US in Iraq?
Cliff DuRand, Gregory Diamant, Bob Stone
Wed, Feb 13, 10:30am
Sala Quetzal
Biblioteca Pública
Insurgentes 25
50 pesos

OK, we know it wasn’t about weapons of mass destruction (they didn’t exist). Nor was it about connections to Al Queda or Iraqi involvement in 9/11 or support for terrorism (none of that existed either). It wasn’t even about Saddam Hussein, as bad a guy as he was (the US had supported him up until the first Persian Gulf War). So why did the US invade Iraq in the face of worldwide opposition? And why is the US still there (and likely to stay for another decade by some accounts)? 

Was it about oil, democratizing the Middle East, geopolitics, hegemony? Now with the fifth anniversary of the US occupation approaching (much longer than US participation in World War II), it’s time to step back and look at the big picture. That’s what the Center for Global Justice panel will do when Cliff DuRand, Gregory Diamant and Bob Stone present varying perspectives and invite your participation in the dialog. We all need to better understand why this war of choice was chosen so that “we, the people” can prevent the next one.

Cliff DuRand is a research fellow at the Center for Global Justice in San Miguel.

Mythology and adventures of Columbus
By Guillermo Méndez

Lecture
Christopher Columbus
Professor Guillermo Méndez
Wed, Feb 13, 3pm
Teatro Santa Ana
50 pesos.

This Wednesday, the Biblioteca will show one of the two “Columbus” films released at the 500-year anniversary of his landfall. Christopher Columbus: The Discovery garnered six Golden Raspberry nominations and starred Tom Selleck as King Ferdinand with a British actress as Queen Isabella. The film, 1492: Conquest of Paradise, stars Gérard Depardieu and Sigourney Weaver, and beautiful cinematography and a Vangelis score also recommend it. But how accurate is it historically?

Was Columbus really all that bad? The mythology and adventures of Christopher Columbus are the subjects of a lecture by Professor Guillermo Méndez, retired San Miguel resident who also lectures on the ancient cultures of Mexico.