THE GLOWING CATHEDRAL: WHERE BACTERIA, INVISIBLE INK AND LIGHT BECOME SCRIPTURE

 

Said Dokins: Inscriptions

Light performance by Photonic returns this Wednesday, July 30th for Museum Night (6-9pm).

Mexico's Ministry of Culture and the National Institute of Fine Arts and Literature, through the Art Alameda Laboratory, in collaboration with the School of Architecture, Art and Design under the arts and cultures initiative of Monterrey Institute of Technology, present ‘Inscriptions’, a groundbreaking collaborative exhibition by artist Said Dokins (Mexico City, 1983). The show runs from July 25 to October 26, 2025, at the venue located at Dr. Mora 7, Historic Centre, Mexico City. This Wednesday, July 30th during Museum Night (6-9pm), the luminous performance by Photonic will be reactivated over Dokins's work. ✨ SAID DOKINS: INSCRIPTIONS 📍 Art Alameda Laboratory Until October 26, 2025 Museum Night: July 30, 6:00pm Dr. Mora 7, Centro, Mexico City, Mexico

Opening of the exhibition Said Dokins: Inscriptions. Photo: Leonardo Luna

The politics of presence

What does it mean to leave a mark in a city that constantly erases its own history? How do you negotiate presence in spaces where political, economic and symbolic power determines which voices are heard and which are silenced? In today's urban fabric, where gentrification, property speculation and official narratives constantly reshape the territories of the visible, the act of inscription becomes a form of resistance that transcends simple writing. The exhibition, developed in collaboration with the Act Lab and the Arts and Design initiative of Monterrey Institute of Technology, brings together three experimental projects that explore writing as a critical tool for intervening in urban space and challenging contemporary systems of representation. Through interventions on the venue's walls using photoluminescent pigments, nocturnal luminous photographs and biotechnological processes with microorganisms, Dokins proposes a reflection on the tensions between presence and erasure in Mexico City's urban fabric. Every act of writing is, fundamentally, a technology of inscription and territorialisation. From the earliest cave paintings to contemporary urban traces, inscription functions as a device that asserts presence, delimits spaces and configures regimes of visibility. In today's urban fabric, where representational politics are constantly contested, how does writing operate as a critical tool? How do graphic gestures reconfigure hegemonic systems of spatial meaning? These questions form the conceptual foundation of Inscriptions, Dokins's new exhibition at the Art Alameda Laboratory. The show is conceived as an experimental system that explores the tensions between sign and surface, presence and erasure, across multiple scales and languages. Space as inscription field For Said Dokins (Mexico City, 1983), inscription transcends its merely textual dimension to become a physical act that reconfigures the environment. His practice articulates an expanded understanding of writing where the body functions as an instrument of inscription and public space as a living archive in constant dispute. The exhibition is structured around three projects that operate from different but converging scales:

Desplazamientos (Displacements) intervenes on the walls of the former temple's central nave with photoluminescent pigments, condensing urban wanderings into visual forms that escape legibility. The recognisable forms in the intervention reference the chalcxihuitl – those circular forms that flank the main nave and introduce an ancestral dimension, referring to pre-Hispanic traditions, the turquoise or jade stone affix, and solar radiance in a radial calligraphy. This destabilises both the colonial narrative of the building's architecture and its religious past, now functioning as an exhibition space, working as a form of counter-writing. The work also includes a reproduction of the 1753 "Map of the Most Noble, Loyal and Imperial City of Mexico" by José Antonio de Villaseñor y Sánchez, establishing a temporal dialogue between historical and contemporary cartographies.

Said Dokins, Displacements, from the exhibition Said Dokins: Inscriptions. Art Alameda Laboratory. Photo: Leonardo Luna

Heliografías de la memoria, (Heliographies of memory), created in collaboration with photographer Leonardo Luna, documents nocturnal performative actions in front of historically significant monuments. Through long photographic exposures, the artist inscribes luminous letters that momentarily reconfigure the symbolic value of these intervened spaces. These images function as critical gestures that interrupt the hegemonic visual order.

Said Dokins and Leonardo Luna, Memory Heliographs, Mexico City

Bio_res_crituras (Bio_re_writings) takes inscription into the microscopic realm, incorporating biological agents collected from epithelial, intestinal and environmental microbiota in the city, activated through biotechnological processes developed in collaboration with the Bioengineering laboratory at Monterrey Institute of Technology alongside scientists Carmen González, Aurea Ramírez and Paola Angulo. The results, presented in Petri dishes and projections, constitute living writings that transform according to the life cycles of the organisms that activate them. This dimension shows how Dokins's practice transcends conventional notions of street art to enter experimental territories where art, science and technology converge.

Said Dokins, Bio_Re_writings, from the exhibition Said Dokins: Inscriptions. Art Alameda Laboratory. Photo: Leonardo Luna

The interdisciplinary collaboration at Monterrey Institute of Technology extends to the interactive video installation De tripas corazón ( From Guts to Heart), created with Piedad MG, Enrique Alcalá and Aurea Ramírez, professors and researchers at the institution. This piece reflects on the gut-brain axis through generative art, creating audiovisual portraits from the sonification and visualisation of biological data from three people, their intestinal microbiota and brain waves recorded through electroencephalograms, which can be modified in real time through portable neuroreading interfaces.

Said Dokins, Aurea Ramírez, Piedad MG and Enrique Alcalá. From Guts to Heart, from the exhibition Said Dokins: Inscriptions. Art Alameda Laboratory. Photo: Leonardo Luna

Public activations The exhibition is conceived as a processual system activated through different strategies. During the opening, Roberto Palma (@Photonic) intervened on the photoluminescent surfaces with laser inscriptions, accentuating the luminous and experimental character of the works. This performance will be reactivated on Wednesday July 30th during Museum Night, from 6 to 9pm, inviting the public to experience the spatial transformations that light generates. The public programme includes participatory tours, activations during museum nights, academic talks with Piedad MG, Aurea Ramírez and Carmen González about microbiota as cultural heritage, activations of the Bio_writings piece in public space, and a masterclass with Eduardo H Obieta and Enrique Alcalá on using bio-data collection devices for artistic pieces. These activities expand reflections on the links between writing, territory and representation, reaffirming the experimental vocation of the Art Alameda Laboratory as a meeting space between contemporary artistic practices and interdisciplinary critical research. The exhibition will be open Tuesday to Sunday, 9am to 5pm, at the Art Alameda Laboratory, located at Dr. Mora 7, Historic Centre, Mexico City. For more information about the activities programme: @artealameda on social media

Credits: Said Dokins: Inscriptions Institutional Coordination: Xavier de la Riva, Director of Art Alameda Laboratory Art Alameda Laboratory Team Emmanuel González Anaya, Regional Dean of the School of Architecture, Art and Design in the Central West Region of Monterrey Institute of Technology Academic Coordination: Piedad MG, Coordinator of the Art Science and Technology Laboratory at Monterrey Institute of Technology (ACT Lab) Photography and Light Collaboration: Leonardo Luna, creative collaborator in photography and light Audiovisual Documentation: Yoshua Franco, nocturnal tour recording and editing Joaquín Cossali, nocturnal tour recording Intervention and Installation: Ramón Costa, Juan Pérez Sound Design: New Creatures Technology Development and Programming: Enrique García Alcalá, Eduardo Montero, Eduardo H Obieta Light Performance: Roberto Palma (Photonic Light Studio) Scientific Collaboration - Monterrey Institute of Technology: Dr. Aurea Ramírez, Dr. Carmen González López, Dr. Paola Angulo, Nayeli Ramírez Martínez, Yuritzi Barbosa, Alejandro Castrejón General Support: Alex Reyna, Claudia de la Garza ________________________________________ Exhibition organised by Mexico's Ministry of Culture and the National Institute of Fine Arts and Literature, through the Art Alameda Laboratory, in collaboration with the School of Architecture, Art and Design through the arts and cultures programme of Monterrey Institute of Technology.