ART AND ECOLOGICAL RESTORATION
Instituto Tropical works tropicalizing art and discourse through Mestizo, First Nations, and Caribbean ontologies in order to contest the narratives that have brought about the current crisis.
Thinking and working with rooted forms of knowledge, we aim to establish renewed generative relations with the multiple beings that sustain our existence. Composting, germinating and blooming, other less extractive ways of knowing and inhabiting the land.
With locations in the city of Vienna and the rural context of Zacualpan de Amilpas in Morelos, Mexico. Instituto Tropical builds upon the strong historical bond between Austria and Mexico. and the intellectual and artistic circulation between Europe and Latin America.
Instituto Tropical wishes to bring forth the connection between art and ecological restoration. Through its different programs works on establishing ties of solidarity, dialogue and exchange between the global north and the global south.
- A school of situated knowledge
- trans disciplinary research
- Artists in residency program
What can you do here that you cannot do anywhere else?
How can you relate to the surroundings—both physical and temporal?
The space unfolds as a horizontal school—a place where knowledge is exchanged, traditions are reimagined, and the many ‘hands’ shaping creative processes, both human and more-than-human, are recognized and honoured.
Like the magmatic force of the volcano that looms over Zacualpan de Amilpas, diverse practices and worldviews converge, flow, and erupt—giving rise to new forms of expression, resistance, and possibility.
“None of us is better than all of us together”—Piripkura peoples
- Exhibition Space
- Artistic Research
- Performative Practices
instituto Tropical Austria is located in the 9th district of the city of Vienna
an exhibition space rooted in dialogue between artistic and ecological practices in urban and rural contexts. Closely linked to its Mexican counterpart, an artists in residency program in Zacualpan de Amilpas, Morelos, Mexico, the space fosters encounters between these distinct yet interconnected ecosystems. Through exhibitions, research, and collaborative initiatives, Instituto Tropical cultivates a shared terrain where artistic and ecological knowledge circulate, generating meaningful exchanges that bridge geographies, disciplines, and ways of knowing.
Instituto Tropical Vienna serves as a meeting ground where two distinct ecosystems—Zacualpan de Amilpas and Vienna—intersect. As an exhibition space, its programme is nurtured through talks, workshops, communal tables, and alternative formats that expand on the tropes explored in the shows. Zacualpan and Vienna in constant dialogue and motion, feeding each other.
Rooted in exchange, the space fosters dialogue between Western and non-Western perspectives, bridging practices and knowledges while actively engaging Vienna’s multicultural communities and their role in shaping the city’s identity.
Instituto Tropical Vienna is committed to: Encouraging active, fair, and meaningful forms of collaboration.
Co-developing collective art projects driven by critical inquiry and radical imagination.
Supporting process-based and site-responsive and sensitive initiatives that learn from the pedagogies f the land, cultivatinge community and generatinge art and knowledge as shared resources.
By embracing diversity, equity, pluralism, and sustainability, Instituto Tropical Vienna aspires to exemplify an art institution* functioning as a living archive—an evolving space where collective knowledge, practices, and experiences are preserved, generated, and shared. A self-reflexive institution.
A space for people, place, planet, and possibilities.
