In the southern stretch of Mexico lies the state of Oaxaca – a rugged, mountainous land dotted with agave fields, vibrant craft villages and pre-Hispanic archeological sites, gently giving way to a coastline of infinite bare beaches. It’s to this part of Oaxaca that surfers from around the world gather at the old coffee harbor of Puerto Escondido, bustling for space to catch their rush of the infamous Mexican pipeline. Half an hour up the coast however, local fisherman have been curiously eyeing a strange new development unravel – Casa Wabi, a concrete oblong being built right on the beach, the largest palapa (thatched palm roof) of the Mexican Pacific perched atop of it and surrounded by nothing but cactus fields and the Sierra Madre del Sur mountain range behind.
The Casa Wabi Foundation is an artist residency founded by Mexican artist Bosco Sodi and designed by Pritzker prize-winning Japanese architect Tadao Ando, inaugurated last October. Ando is credited for his sensitivity to the unity between architecture and nature, and arriving to Casa Wabi from the dusty dirt road that winds off the Pan-American Highway, one can see why. The entire building is swept open to the elements, door-less, with specks of sand blowing through the main living area and a serene silence permeating the empty space. Tadao tends to use concrete for most his work, and its glass-like surface registers the densities of light that fall upon it; in Casa Wabi, the walls are tinted a pale azure, reflecting the sea which they face.
I found Bosco Sodi working in his studio, wearing a frayed t-shirt and New York Yankees cap (Sodi is currently based out of Red Hook, Brooklyn), his arms wrist-deep in a mound of clay. “I’m working on a new art piece, well, for now it’s more of an experiment,” says Bosco, pointing to three large cubes of dark earth which local workers are helping him to trim down. “We’re hoping to make 125 of these into a totem, and it’s been an interesting challenge to convince the local guys that I’m not completely crazy. I tell them that they’re doing something nobody has ever done before.”
This approach of involving Oaxaca’s locals in the artistic process is one of the main focuses of Casa Wabi, and is something which director Patricia Martin – the former director and curator of the Jumex Collection – emphasizes: “Here in Mexico we live in a country with some very poor regions, yet haven’t developed a culture of giving back. The beauty of Casa Wabi is that we focus on the relationship between the artist and the community, not just the art piece”. The residency is open to national and international artists from any field, usually from about a few weeks to three months, and the foundation wholly funds each of the programs it foments.
Bosco describes how sometimes, coming down to this isolated spot, getting into a whole different rhythm of life, the residents suddenly come out with a piece drastically different to their usual work. Two artists from the first round of the program, Claudia Fernandez and Benjamin Torres, went to a local primary school of the Chatino community and discovered that their dialect was slowly dying out; they worked with the principal of the school to make a bestiary of the local plants and wildlife, drawn by the schoolchildren to be distributed and taught in the area.
The point-de-rencontre in Casa Wabi, like it often is in Mexico, is the communal dining table. This particular table is a statement piece however, a ten-meter chunk of solid parota wood reaching from one end of the shaded palapa space to the other. “It took about 180 people to carry this thing in, and it can seat dinners of forty people,” laughs Bosco. “But even it is done with simplicity. Everything here has been made by hand.” Minimalism is everywhere in Casa Wabi, its name harking from the Zen philosophy of wabi-sabi which describes the beauty in imperfection and the adaptability of life – nothing is ever truly complete. “Tadao is a big follower of wabi-sabi, and we ourselves apply the philosophy within our program. The point of wabi is about being organic. If an artist comes with a solid project and wants to change it, then of course they can. It’s anything they want to propose, as long as it engages with the community”.
As the cook serves up a large bowl of steaming mole, a regional delicacy of rich sauce made of ground chilies and dozens of other ingredients, the conversation turns to what the artists will do during the afternoon. Miguel Monroy, who usually lives in Mexico City, is planning to go to the El Venado community and procure a fishing net for his art pieces (“The first ones were so expensive, at 4000 pesos!”). When asked if it’s difficult at times to create a good rapport with the villagers, he tells me of Genaro Gevarez, an anthropologist that Casa Wabi has recruited to act as a human encyclopedia and a link to the various groups. Open some beers, small talk, hit back a few tequilas, and the ice is broken. Daniel Toca, a wiry writer, is planning on taking the afternoon off from the short poems he is composing to ride a horse to the thermal springs nearby, crossing rivers and papaya fields. I wonder if I shouldn’t become an artist.
The foundation is divided roughly into two sections, with the right-hand side leading down an expansive walkway to two artist studios and six, sparsely decorated resident cabanas. On the left are the galleries, 8000 square-feet of space that Tadao has ingeniously absorbed into the landscape. You never feel the sheer size of the building. Behind the main wall is a sprawling botanical garden which Mexican architect Alberto Kalach is landscaping. And on the leftermost tip of the property, things really get absurd: a half-submerged periscope, the observatory, inside which one set of artists ended up jamming with acoustic guitars.
Each round of residents is very different; usually about six to eight people come to Casa Wabi at a time. The retreat has played host to the likes of Corban Walker, an Irish sculptor based in New York, and James Fenton, the poet and critic. It’s all about considering which personalities will work well together. There could be cooks, opera singers, film-makers or architects, and in the days before the retreat opens, every one helps to get the site ready.
Casa Wabi is a statement piece. And although a paid artist residency might seem an unsuitable vehicle for social change, the requisite to a stay here is that the artists’ work gauges the needs of local communities and leaves behind a tangible, lasting change. So far, at least, this has been the case. Projects have involved the creation of ethnographic museums, engagement with natural surroundings and pride in a cultural heritage that is being lost. The difficulty will lie in whether residents can keep coming up with new – and effective – ideas for the months and years to come.
(Originally published in Monocle Magazine, Issue 87. Photography by Alejandro Cartagena)
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