Cristina Ochoa

Category: Intervention

  • The Miraculous Recipe

    Exposition name: The Miraculous Recipe
    Location: Mexican American Institute of Relations. Monterrey, México. | Mauricio Badillo’s Garden, Mexico City. | Pereira Art Museum, Pereira, Colombia.
    Date: 2011

  • Pharmakon

    Exposition name: Pharmakon
    Location: Centre Cultural Maristany, Barcelone    
    Date: 2016
    Curators: Juan Canela, Andrea Novoa  and Verónica Valentini

    Description: PHARMAKON is an ongoing artistic research project exploring the boundaries between pharmacy and the use of psychoactive substances. It opens a critical dialogue around the concepts of “drug” and “medicine,” functioning as an experimental laboratory that investigates the dual nature of healing and toxicity—where cure and poison often coexist.

  • Garden of Oblivion

    Exposition name: Garden of Oblivion
    Type: Garden Intervention

  • Garden of Hope

    Exposition name: Garden of Hope
    Type: San Francisco, Nayarit
    Collaboration with: Neil Pyatt
    Date: 2019

    Description: Evolved into multiple living spaces during the LILHA Residency Program in Nayarit, Mexico, in 2019. Together with the local community of San Francisco, we revitalized four separate gardens through a collaborative planting process. Plants were gathered through donations and exchanges, with contributions from participants who responded to open calls to join the collective effort of planting and regeneration.

  • Future Goddess

    Exposition name: Future Goddesses
    Type: Nano counter ADN reader.
    Materials: Biotech
    Date: 2019

    Description: The Mayan legend of the Ololiuhqui or Xtabentún flower tells of two sisters: Xtabay, kind, generous, and misunderstood for her open-heartedness, and Utz-Colel, praised for her purity but inwardly cold and envious. When Xtabay died, her body released a sweet fragrance, and from it bloomed a delicate white flower—the sacred Xtabentún, used ritually by the Maya for its psychoactive seeds containing LSA. She became a compassionate goddess, guardian of desperate souls. Jealous, Utz-Colel vowed that a more beautiful flower would grow from her body. Upon her death, a stunning cactus appeared, but with a foul odor—the Tsacam, reflecting her true nature. Furious, she pleaded with the Lords of the Underworld and was allowed to return in Xtabay’s form, but as a demon. Since then, she appears beneath the Ceiba tree, luring intoxicated men into the underworld. The legend contrasts superficial virtue with genuine compassion and honors the spiritual power of love and generosity.

  • Psychotropical Apothecary (Pharmakon)

    Exposition name: Psychotropical Apothecary  (Pharmakon)
    Type: Different art spaces
    Date: 2020

    Description: Mobile and permanent installation that brings together tinctures, micro-dosing practices, and live performance in an experiential and participatory format. Since its inception in 2020, it has been presented in various art spaces, inviting more than 3,000 participants—99.9% of whom have reported positive effects. This ongoing project offers a curated selection of plant-based preparations designed to heal the body, expand consciousness, and support neuro-hacking. Drawing from ancestral herbal knowledge and contemporary experimentation, the apothecary includes tinctures and extracts of Calea zacatechichi (the “herb of dreams,” used to induce vivid dreaming and activate the pineal gland), Psilocybe cubensis Mexicana (San Isidro mushrooms, known for boosting serotonin.

  • Spandemia

    Exposition name: Spandemia
    Location: Cyclo DF, México City
    Date: Mar 2021
    Material: Dyed cotton in vapor and fabrics with the medicinal plants.
    Producer: Cyclo DF

    Description: Installation of a consultation room featuring hand-dyed cotton fabrics using plant-based pigments, accompanied by ceramic pieces and a curated apothecary of herbal preparations.

  • Arafura –  Garden of Psychotropical Hope

    Exposition name: Arafura –  Garden of Psychotropical Hope (Pharmakon)
    Location: Popotla, Mexico City
    Date: 2021

    Description: Design and production of the garden as a living art work, from the star of the rebuilding of the house, now a cultural art center dedicated to residencies for art curators, artist and research in art and ecofeminism.  

    Related external links:

    PHARMAKON: Jardín de la Esperanza Psicotropical by Arafura MX
    https://www.arafura.mx/pharmakon.html

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  • Forget Me Not

    Exposition name: Forget Me Not
    Location: Nina Menocal’s Gallery, Mexico City
    Curator: Nancy Mookina
    Date: Oct 2021

    Description: Garden intervention with no me olvides plants at Nina Menocal’s Gallery in Mexico City, part of the exhibition Nuevo verdor, Curated by Nancy Mookina.

  • Vegetal sound machine translator – Terence Máquina 

    Exposition name: Vegetal sound machine translator – Terence Máquina
    Location: JUMEX Museum
    Collborators: Eduardo Vindiola  Sound design and instrumental production.
    Date: 2021

    Description: Cotton fabrics dyed in vapor with medicinal plants found in Izamal and Mérida  Dragon’s blood, achiote, chaya, ricino, muicle, achiote, bugamvilia, Jamaica, tronadora, tobacco, chicalote, damiana, tepezcohuite. Nine meters by seven meters by three meters.

    Related external articles:

    – Proyecto en Izamal, La tierra al revés. By Fundación Jumex
    https://www.fundacionjumex.org/es/exposiciones/242-proyecto-en-izamal-la-tierra-al-reves