I am a human, my name is TetraPAKMAN. I am a Mexican, Madison-based artist working around concepts of conservation. I create my pieces using repurposed/reclaimed materials. My practice focuses on community-generated social sculpture projects, and my work is about the future and the challenges we face as a community. One of my interests is to explore the role of art as a medium for generating awareness of the climate crisis and find ways to counter the effects of the ecofascism that people in power are trying to impose on all of us.
The resulting work of my practice raises questions about sustainability, the state of the environment, educational strategies, social networks, privilege, and our ability to provoke change.
The first time I heard the term Climate Change was in 1989. I decided to become an artist in 1991, and since then, I have been evolving and using my platform to address these challenges.
DOING SOMETHING! // THE BUBBLER MADISON PUBLIC LIBRARY 2024-2025
This residence was an opportunity to connect with the community and start new projects and pieces like the Temples. Furthermore as part of his residency at Central Library, TetraPAKMAN worked with the public over seven months to paint an additional 21 climate sheets during open studio hours, workshops, and other special events, while discussing personal responsibility, privilege, and collective climate action with patrons of all ages.
TetraPAKMAN’s ‘Wake Up!’ Art Installation brought Data into Focus on the Windows of Madison Public Library’s Central Library to celebrate Earth Day, 2025.
“For me it was important to bring back this project … and to put it around [the library] so that we can say ‘libraries are a safe space for science, libraries are a safe space for the community to have these types of conversations’ [even when the rest of the world] is still trying to deny the science facts or trying to distract us from the actions that we need to take.”
— TetraPAKMAN, on Wake Up!
Diane Endres-Ballweg Gallery, 3rd Floor of Central Library
Exhibition displayed March 31, 2025 – April 24, 2025
This exhibition, Our Result of ‘Doing Something’, brought together 10+ years of work by TetraPAKMAN, including paintings, prints, collages, repurposed artifacts, and community-generated social sculptures. These pieces were displayed alongside the creative works of library patrons and local community members made during his 7-month artist residency at Central Library. The exhibition deeply engages with our climate crisis, blending factual data with visionary thinking about the future and collective action in the present.
The diverse layers of this exhibition underscore the urgency of our current environmental challenges, both through message and material. From TetraPAKMAN’s poignant paintings of Methane – The Monster Across the Street to the junk mail collages and mixed media mobiles envisioned by youth who responded to the prompt ‘How Do You Envision Our Landscapes of Tomorrow?’. True to his artistic approach, TetraPAKMAN fosters dialogue through Our Result of ‘Doing Something’ by encouraging conversations among everyday people about the environmental issues that affect us all.
Espejito, espejito AKA charco de petróleo, an installation for Winter is Alive it’s installed at Lake Monona by John Nolen Drive between Olin Park and North Shore Drive. Madison WI.
Thank you to Pablo Baxter, Lars W. Koch, Emily Popp and Giacomo
Mirror, mirror on the lake, who’s the fairest of them all?
Constructed with reclaimed black synthetic fabrics (made with oil), “Espejito, espejito AKA charco de petróleo” represents a potential oil spill on the lake caused by a pipeline. The fairytale is a reference to the human obsession with beauty or progress, and how it is used as leverage over others – the idea of indoctrination and normalization of very specific concepts starting in childhood that helps to build and perpetuate stereotypes.
The oil industry, assimilated into our culture, has been abusing every aspect of our society with its power structures. It is incredible that in 2021, burning fossil fuels is the status quo, no matter the environmental consequences. Mirror, mirror, who is the most selfish and powerful of them all? For farsighted people, this is an opportunity to imagine the possibility of another oil spill. With that image reflected at us, this is a call to take action and demand our vital bodies of water be protected for future generations.
The time to wake up to identify and defund the systems and corporations behind our current situation is now. Despite our knowledge, we keep buying and using products that are detrimental to our planet, our health, and our kids’ futures. We allow the government, health care system, churches and universities to invest our money into destructive agendas despite the fact that they are institutions that are supposed to care for the common good. We are not questioning the narrative that it is good for the economy even though in reality it is only good for a powerful few. We are numbed, distracted, enjoying today as if tomorrow didn’t matter. Is consuming our way towards self-destruction the American way? We have all of the tools, we have all of the information, we have the ability to exchange knowledge and distribute new ideas at a viral rate. Why is it so hard to accept the facts and act with responsibility for the future?
Members of the scientific community have been speaking loudly about the dangers of unregulated fossil fuel combustion and its close relationship to climate change for more than fifty years. If we are to fix this problem, we must shut down the pipeline of subsidies, resources and money fueling the dark fossil fuels industry. It is disturbing, and it should be a crime, that a few corporations have worked hard to disrupt the public’s access and understanding of this information. Today, all over the world, we are experiencing the devastating effects and consequences of an irresponsible business model based on the hypothetical infinite processes of extraction and the burning of fossil fuels. The market can keep expanding, the economy may be strong, but the possibility of a livable future is still in peril.
WAKE UP! visualizes the data of the Keeling Curve, documenting the rise of CO2 levels over time. These banners represent a small portion of this curve, showing the last ten years of measurements. One hundred and twenty sheets were painted by members of the Madison community and brought to the streets on September 20, 2019 as part of the Global Climate Strike. This project is ongoing, the banners will return to the streets and this project will get recreated around the world to demand climate action. You can help make this happen.
We need to continue to connect the dots between scientific data and our lived reality, between the choices we make with our wallets, the ways we choose to live our lives, and the impact of our actions. WAKE UP! invites you to consider what you can do to contribute to the construction of a better future.
WAKE UP! and join us.
TetraPAKMAN
The project WAKE UP! was produced thanks to the generous support of DaneArts and DAMA, Dane Arts Mural Arts
