Abraham Gómez

San Juan Chamula, Chiapas, México, 1997.

Photographer and sales advisor at the Nissan agency in San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico.

In his visual narrative Abraham explores the interactions between the Tsotsil world and the global world. His photographic projects emerge from the need to investigate the cultural tradition, the value of ancestral knowledge and acculturation to the Western world through the consumer market, highlighting the growing interaction with the contemporary indigenous world.

As Abraham himself indicates, his photographic work transits between two worlds, the Tsotsil that has given him his origin, ch’ulel, and spirituality and the western one that makes him question his cultural beliefs and practices. For this reason he is always present, the individual and the act. His photography has a documentary and performative sense, exercising self-portraits, portraits and capturing the collective memory of his community. In Abraham’s photographic practice, his position as a Chamula man intermingles with his own experience as a subject of contemporaneity. An example is Bless my path (2017). Here, his own daily work as a vehicle sales consultant and his artist side merge into a single reflection on the interaction between the indigenous Mayan world and the global marketplace.

InTanchak: Huixtán Carnival (2016-2020), he also explores together with Margarita Martínez the staging of the artists Sakji ‘during Tanchak. In this series and through the ceremonial action and festival of the Tsotsil people of Huixtán, he mixes the idea of ​​the ancestral and sacred with the fun of a community celebration. The photographs freeze the details of the celebration that is a door to tradition from the present.

Exhibitions

• Transborder Mayan Project, virtual exhibition, Cultural Center of Spain, Guatemala, 2020.
• Mayan and zoque interpretations of the (In) visible pandemic, virtual exhibition, Galería MUY, 2020.
• Tanchak: Huixtán Carnival, multidisciplinary exhibition, Galería MUY, San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas, 2020.
• Bless my path, solo exhibition, Galería MUY, San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas, 2017.
• The camera turns, group exhibition, Galería MUY, San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas, 2016.
• Contemporary photography in Mexico. Cenart, Mexico City, 2016.
• Unveil and detonate, international exhibition, Photography in Mexico ca, 2015.
• Tragameluz Festival, San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas, 2014.
• Between Thanatos and Hypnos, from the Chiapaneca Contemporary Photography Collective. Tragameluz Festival, San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas, 2014.

Books in which he has participated

• Co-author of Distintos colores de la tierra, with the authorship of three bilingual literary works.
• Unveil and detonate, photography in Mexico ca. 2015, Conaculta / Image Center, 2015.

FONCA Fellow during the XII Diploma in Literary Creation at the General Society of Writers of Mexico (SOGEM), 2002.