New exhibition at Birkbeck’s Peltz Gallery explores colour, culture and ecological change
Running until 11 March, 'Melanie Smith: Tixinda, a Snail’s Purple' is open to the general public.
Peltz Gallery at Birkbeck has opened its latest research-led exhibition, Melanie Smith: Tixinda, a Snail’s Purple. The multi-media installation by British-Mexican artist Melanie Smith, developed in collaboration with the visual artist Patricio Villarreal Ávila, invites audiences to engage with the complex cultural, ecological and economic histories embedded in the natural purple dye.
Taking its title from tixinda, the Mixtec term for the sea snail Plicopurpura pansa, the exhibition reflects on the species’ unique ability to yield purple dye without harm, a practice that has sustained Indigenous communities along Mexico and Central America’s Pacific Coast for centuries.
Curated by Mara Polgovsky Ezcurra, Senior Lecturer in Contemporary Art at Birkbeck's School of Historical Studies, Birkbeck, the show foregrounds the sensorial and symbolic dimensions of purple as a material and conceptual thread interconnecting global systems of exchange. Through immersive visual and sensory elements, Tixinda considers human relationships with animal, plant, and mineral worlds, exploring narratives of co-existence even amid histories marked by extraction and extinction.
Located at the Peltz Gallery in Gordon Square, the exhibition is part of Birkbeck’s commitment to presenting interdisciplinary work that bridges academic research and contemporary art. Visitors can explore the installation weekdays from 10am - 8pm, with free entry throughout the exhibition’s run.
Smith's works have been shown in numerous important exhibitions. Among her recent solo exhibitions are Locas y Lapas, Centro Cultural Bodegón, Los Vilos, Chile (2024); Fordlandia, Video Room, Museu de Arte de Sao Paulo, Brazil (2022); Fifteen Minutes of Sublime Meditation, Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico City (2023); Melanie Smith. Farsa y Artificio, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Monterrey (MARCO), Mexico (2020), Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo (MUAC), UNAM, Mexico City (2019), Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona, Spain (2018); and Digging Up the Present, Parc Saint-Léger Centre d'Art Contemporain, Pougues-les-Eaux, France (2019).