MIFA | Monica Czukerberg: Mexican Flowers: Living Memory. Opening Reception

Room D

Mexican Flowers: Living Memory

by

Monica Czukerberg Nankin

Curated by: Katherine Chacón
This exhibition celebrates the enduring beauty and cultural symbolism of Mexican flora through vibrant, large-scale floral compositions. Monica Czukerberg Nankin's work reflects on memory, heritage, and identity rooted in botanical imagery.
In this evocative body of work, Czukerberg draws from her journeys through Mexico’s Pueblos Mágicos to explore the nation’s cultural diversity, traditions, and history. At the heart of the exhibition is the flower—a recurring motif in Mexican popular art and crafts—that becomes both subject and symbol. Through painting interwoven with artisanal practices, Czukerberg highlights the flower’s dual role: as a reminder of life’s transience and as an affirmation of vitality, beauty, and dignity.

Her practice celebrates the essential role of women in sustaining cultural memory. Each work resonates with the feminine impulse to preserve and nurture: gestures of embroidery, cooking, planting, and storytelling that weave daily life into a lasting legacy. The flower, in her hands, becomes a metaphor for resilience and celebration—a reminder of the fragile yet enduring beauty of the present.
Czukerberg’s approach combines organic and abstract forms, dissolving representation into vibrant color and expressive brushwork. Her installation transforms the gallery into the atmosphere of a Mexican home, where ornament becomes a language of affection. Through painting, fabric, and arrangement, she honors the feminine force that sustains culture, memory, and life itself.
“Mexican Flowers, Living Memory affirms the flower as both symbol and presence,” writes curator Katherine Chacón. “It is a tribute to women’s cultural labor and to the beauty that flourishes in the every