greetings from Chicagoacán (canasta básica)

2023-2024
life-size concrete casts of Mexican products purchased in American supermarkets

Text by Alivé Piliado:
Through mold-making and casting, Pardo documents items that often serve as immediate connections to home, immortalizing them into objects of memory, longing, and affect.

Derived from the concept of the canasta básica (the essential food basket for sustenance), these inert objects speak to the individual and collective experience of adapting to a new context. The spatial configuration evokes the aisles of a busy supermarket, a silent cityscape, or a solemn graveyard, inviting dialogue between objects that bear the weight of transnational nostalgia and the built environment. The use of concrete for the casts, and the incorporation of cinder blocks for this presentation—materials closely tied to labor and construction in Mexico—serve as a register of the physical and emotional labor of migrating. Ultimately, the setting reflects on how longing permeates everyday life and, within the realm of consumer culture, how it too can be commodified.

This installation is part of Pardo’s larger, ongoing project greetings from Chicagoacán. Through this work, she explores how the Mexican community in Chicago engages in place making, examining how individuals and groups use both tangible and intangible resources to cultivate a sense of belonging in this segregated city.