The starting point of the work of the Mexican artist Minerva Cuevas (Mexico City, 1975) is social intervention in spaces ranging from the internet to urban space and museums. Through her installations, murals and photographic work, she has assumed the role of both a political and artistic actor. In 1998, she founded her anti-capitalist Mejor Vida Corp. (Better Living Corporation), an on-going project that offers free products and services via the internet (www.irational. org/mvc).
For the exhibition at the Van Abbemuseum, Cuevas shows the series of works called 'Phenomena' and the installation 'Social Entomology' together.

The 'Phenomena' series re-adapts early scientific and optical devices such as magic lanterns and microscope projectors to display images that belong to the scientific repertoire of the early 20th century. These include a monkey wearing a jacket, a collection of hundreds of unicellular fossils (diatomaceae) arranged in a decorative way, edited footage of evolutionary behavioural experiments from the sixties, a music box playing the sounds of a voodoo ritual cursing the USA administration. lt also includes photographs of meteorites (one with religious graffiti imbedded in it), a reference to Mayan culture and its use of colours to identify the cardinal points, creating a hybrid graphic together with an European compass and a 30 second black and white film from 1965 portraying mythical Fidel Castro giving a speech in the rain. With these diverse references to natural phenomena, science, political myths and visual and technological instruments, Cuevas illustrates a mental map of associations around the notion of social phenomena. The title of this series alludes to the Kantian term 'phenomena', which refers to objects we understand through sensible intuition and appearances, as opposed to the objects that are exclusively understood by intellect. Apart from its original use as a term in philosophy, phenomenon also stands for any observed event. Sorne of which are commonplace, while others require delicate manipulation of complex and sensitive equipment, therefore phenomena make up also the raw data of science, and are often exploited by technology. With this series of works Cuevas shows how politics, religion and science are inextricably linked to one another.

The installation 'Social Entomology', compiles the research materials of Cuevas' explorations around the concept of society. The core element of this piece is an insect concert which aims to produce a musical metaphor of society in times of arder and chaos. Using references to the individual, to different kinds of collectivities and to human culture, this installation presents sorne very early entomological specimens projected on to the walls of the space. lt also includes many insect body parts on display in the vitrines: fleas, heads of spiders, bees' feet, dust of butterflies wings and various research materials.
With ali these works we are thrown back into an original introduction in which amazement and precise intuitive observation clear the path to knowledge, but also mirror our desire to control and domesticate the savage and anarchic.

Wall painting & Public action
Working around our notion of civilization and the concept of progress, the artists presents inside the museum space two other works: a wall painting depicting the phrase: "Not lmpressed by Civilization", - a example of her earlier production - and a public action honouring Polish scientist and science-fiction writer Stanislaw Lem. His work explores philosophical themes: speculation on technology, the nature of intelligence, the impossibility of mutual communication or understanding, despair about human limitations and humankind's place in the universe. He often chose to present those themes as fiction, to avoid both trappings of academic life and limitations of readership and scientific style, but that at other times he also worked in the form of essays or philosophical books. Lem was increasingly critica[ of modern technology in his later life, criticizing inventions such as the internet. For the event in the museum (on the day of the opening) Cuevas together with the public released dozens sky lanterns that fly high.

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