Naomi Rincón Gallardo’s 'Dung Kinship' (2024) at the Toronto Biennial of Art

KADIST and the Toronto Biennial of Art will premiere a new commission by Naomi Rincón Gallardo at the Toronto Biennial of Art 2024

The premiere of Dung Kinship (2024) follows the presentation of a prelude of the work by Rincón Gallardo which was first presented as part of the exhibition Pies bajo fuego: Sobre el despojo [Feet Under Fire: On Dispossession], an exhibition in collaboration with and presented at MAC Panama curated by Miguel A. López. 

Dung Kinship (2024) unfolds a musical digestive journey through the underground, the mineral, the mycelium, and the unconscious. Motorcycle-riding fly/human creatures traverse different dry wastelands carrying shovels and empty bottles. One of them reaches a forest where, despite the drought, mushroom children sprout. The mushrooms trap her to take her on a journey underground. They reveal to her an epiphany: that her mission is not reproductive, but excavatory. Thus, the psychonaut fly gains access to underground passages, where she encounters other creatures that decompose and recycle discarded matter. In a spiral descent, a beetle incorporates her into its dung ball and transports her to a cavern where dwells the matron of filth, garbage, and shit, who prepares fermented brews that heal and intoxicate. There’s also a go-go dancer who celebrates pleasure in the underground. Together, they revel in the generative decomposition process that occurs beneath a territory where drones buzz and a war march resounds.

Naomi Rincón Gallardo is a research, performance, and video artist who synthesizes tech, cuir (rather than queer), pop, and kitsch culture in her work. Through a framework that centers decolonial feminisms and cuir perspectives, her work fabricates narratives of desire, dissidence, and resilience based on Mesoamerican mythologies.

The Toronto Biennial of Art’s mission is to make contemporary art accessible to everyone. A ten-week event every two years, the Biennial commissions artists to create new works for a city-wide exhibition in dialogue with Toronto’s diverse local contexts. Year-round public and learning programs bridge Biennials and invite intergenerational audiences to explore the ideas that inspire our events. Building upon past editions and offering new ways of seeing and listening, each Biennial connects people to spark meaningful dialogues and imagine new futures.