Francis Alÿs’s 1997 performance piece, *Paradox of Praxis I*, serves as a starting point for an exploration of Mexico City’s violent hydrological transformation. By pushing a block of ice through the streets until it evaporates, Alÿs retraces the vanished canals of Tenochtitlán, the Aztec capital that was systematically drained by Spanish colonizers to establish a terrestrial, European-style urban grid.
This historical analysis frames the act of drainage as an "ecological coup" and a bureaucratic tool of colonial control. By replacing a complex lacustrine ecosystem with stone and asphalt, the Spanish crown attempted to convert a sacred, fluid landscape into measurable property, setting the stage for a modern metropolis that exists in constant, unsustainable opposition to its own watery foundations.