Exploring Plotting: A Workshop Zine in Mexico City

Patricia de Vries, lector of the research group Art & Spatial Praxis, gave a Plot(ting) workshop in collaboration with MediaLabMX in Mexico City last year. Take a look at the zine that offers an insight into the collective mind map that materialised during the workshop.


This workshop brought together an assembly of participants, including urban architects, artists, activists, curators, philosophers, and designers, all converging to engage with the concept of "the plot" articulated by the decolonial thinker Sylvia Wynter. Over the course of three days, participants collectively charted a visual mind map, serving as a depiction of their exploration of "the plot."

The contents of this Zine encapsulate the diversity of ideas and concepts generated during our workshop discussions, shedding light on various strategies aimed at fostering more equitable, communal, queer, and subversive approaches to inhabiting our urban environments.

This Zine forms a tapestry of contributions from participants, encompassing an array of objects, from verbs and subversive songs to attributes used during occupations. These items are emblematic of each individual's interpretation of plotting within the broader context of our collective discussions.

Highlighted below are a few insights and suggestions that emerged from our collective endeavour:

• Advocating for collective practices and the importance of social work.
• Cultivating communal land and fostering self-organising communities.
• Delving into the intricate web of social connections, weaving communal fabric.
• The significance of Millpa as a potential avenue for communal growth.
• Engaging in collective actions, such as social tequio, as a means of community empowerment.
• Recognizing affection as a potent and legitimate political stance.
• Embracing reclamation, occupation, and the defence of communal spaces.
• Championing the art of disobedience as a form of resistance.
• Delving into the idea of place and enunciation within a communal context.
• Navigating the realms of theory, organisation, and mobilization to enact change.
• Embracing the nuanced notions of plot, squatting, cracking, and folding as instruments of transformation.
• Celebrating food culture and ancestral culture as essential elements of communal life.
• Embracing alternative subjectivities to challenge established norms.
• Exploring the possibilities and implications of deschooling.  
• Contemplating knowledge as a communal model of coexistence.
• Advocating for the sharing of knowledge as a communal endeavour.
• Embracing circular economies of knowledge for sustainability.
• Fostering assemblages and temporal autonomous zones as tools for communal development.
• Embracing ambiguity as a source of creativity and exploration.

Take a look at zine here >