Instituto MESA focuses on seeking new understandings and connections between art and society that catalyze and investigate the complexities and ethical and aesthetic possibilities of contemporary life and generate new research and action. In this way, the emergent transversalities between artistic, curatorial and pedagogic practices become a field of socio-cultural and political action. This work can be loosely divided into six areas:

Museums, Cultural Centers and Collections
Explores the possibilities, parameters, and paradigms of curatorial, artistic and pedagogic practices and focuses on conceiving and producing new formats and processes to re-imagine the institution as a living structure (instituting rather than institutionalizing) as a critical and democratic generator of transdisciplinary perspectives and socio-cultural action.

Curare
Drawing on the Latin roots of curatorship, curare, meaning care, these initiatives seek to realize complex, multiple and interwoven levels of care and complicity with artists, publics, researchers and contexts with a particular interest in the relations between art and health.

Tables & Conversations
Circulate knowledge and ideas, bring diverse perspectives together and facilitate discussion via diverse formats: encounters, study groups, seminars, networks, conferences, dialogues, debates, interviews, and exchanges. We seek a critical contribution of multiple voices via a network of collaborations engaging artists, cultural workers, and diverse communities and institutional contexts (museums, universities and social organizations) as well as the participation of a wide variety of citizens and other professionals.

Teaching & Learning
Teaching and learning initiatives foster experimental relationships between education, culture and contemporary artistic production. Formats include courses, schools, research and action projects with the perspective of experimental, transdiciplinary and participative learning aligned with discussions emerging in contemporary culture and in the fields of art, curatorship and education.

Publications
The institute’s publications are designed to explore and disseminate experiences, research and critical questions on the intersections between art, culture and education in contemporary society. Our work engages with diverse national and international initiatives and experiences with a view to facilitating a channel for the critical development of artists, educators, students, researchers and social agents. As such, Revista MESA, our flagship publication, aims to explore the complex interactions between contemporary art and society, as well as the ethical and esthetic shifts in social practices that traverse the fields of art, curatorship and education in their distinct and varying formats.

Consultancy
Instituto MESA provides consultancy services for public and private entities working in art, culture and education. We produce and assist with projects, research and other initiatives in three different areas: 1) curatorial and educational studies for art museums and cultural institutions; 2) sociocultural agency; 3) transdisciplinary projects and research