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Once Upon a Field opens this Sunday at Galería Mariane Ibrahim in Mexico City's Renacimiento neighborhood, featuring eleven artists from the African diaspora who explore soccer's history through migration, bodily memory, and popular culture, according to El Universal Cultura.
Mariane Ibrahim Gallery, with locations in Chicago, Paris, and Mexico City, has built a program centered on artists from African and Latin American diasporas. Curator Marisol Rodríguez designed a journey tracing soccer's presence in African diaspora communities from sub-Saharan Africa to the neighborhoods of Europe and the Americas. The exhibition spans painting, collage, photography, textiles, and video, running through August 15, 2026 at Río Pánuco 36, Renacimiento.
Participating artists include Clotilde Jiménez, recognized for collages articulating Caribbean and Afro-Latino urban culture; Raphaël Barontini, whose work explores colonial history through textile representation; and Abderrahmane Sissako, Mauritanian filmmaker whose visual art practice includes photographs of street soccer games in African cities. Several works reference Garrincha, the Brazilian striker from the 1958 and 1962 World Cups whose personal story has become a cultural touchstone for the diaspora. XEX 730 AM radio appears in audio pieces played throughout the space.
Once Upon a Field's arrival in Mexico City during the World Cup makes this one of the season's most significant cultural events, merging debates about identity, diaspora, and belonging with soccer as a global language.
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Sources:
- El Universal Cultura: https://www.eluniversal.com.mx/cultura/once-upon-a-field-juega-con-el-futbol-y-con-la-infancia/
- Galería Mariane Ibrahim: https://marianeibrahim.com
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This article was written with artificial intelligence assistance from verified sources and reviewed by a human editor before publication.