San Cristóbal de Las Casas. Chiapas, México
This is a collective project by Maya artists from Guatemala and Maya/Zoque artists from Chiapas, Mexico. While not ignoring the profound differences in the national history and culture of each country, this project places their current ‘border’ in quotation marks, and celebrates a pan-Maya cultural territory with a millennial history, viewed from the past and towards the future.
It is a future undoubtedly marked by the present, by the pandemic and its medium-term consequences. This exhibition, consisting of six projects (five individual and one duo), featuring multimedia, photography, video, painting, and performance, reveals in a thousand ways how the Maya and indigenous peoples are looking at the what, why, and how of responding to the COVID-19 crisis. In this way, they rediscover and reaffirm their physical and cultural territory, their autonomy, the foundation of their soul in the relationship with nature, the power of the Maya people to transcend borders through their art, and the need to cross colonial borders through intercultural dialogues, as it is the pressing subject at this moment in this complex part of the world.
However, history shapes reality, and the (imposed) border is real, and today even re-materialized as a result of national policies against the spread of the coronavirus! Finally, a dialectic between nationalism and regionalism is widely reflected in this project.
The consideration is one of life and death, and therefore we say that this exhibition demonstrates a new bioculture. All creators respond to: How do they live through the pandemic and the policies related to it? People who return to their communities, people who cannot return. It leads us to deep reflections that range from personal and community spirituality to critical resistance as they discover the Maya and human brotherhood across borders of country, culture, and geography.
The Transborder Maya Project is the result of multiple conversations initiated two years ago between artists and curators, exploring how contemporary Maya art breaks borders, unleashes creativity, and fosters solidarity. It poses the question of how Maya creators are redefining their artistic work in the pandemic era. It is a form of social practice art, to be shared within the indigenous communities of the pan-Maya region and in society at large.
Thanks to the support of the Centro Cultural de España in Guatemala, and to Raquel Jiménez and Javier Payeras, we are pleased to present this exhibition in Guatemala.
The artists are: From Guatemala:
Marilyn Boror Bor (K’akch’ikel, 1984)
Manuel Chavajay (Tz’utujil, 1982)
Ángel Poyón (K’akch’ikel, 1976)
From Chiapas:
PH Joel (Tseltal, 1992)
Saúl Kak (Zoque, 1985)
Säsäk Nichim and Abraham Gómez (Tsotsil, 1980 and 1977)
The organizers are from the Galería MUY team:
Martha Alejandro (Zoque, 1988)
Josué Gómez (Tsotsil, 1986)
Artworks
Marilyn Boror Bor
We all want to go to the mountains
Instalation
2020
“Xul is the word for whistle in Kaqchikel, a clay whistle that sounds like a sharp bird, which is part of a series titled ‘Dictionary of Forgotten Objects.’ This series was created when I migrated to the city of Guatemala; being far from my village meant abandoning habits, objects, thoughts, and worldviews; with this dictionary, my objects made of clay, wood, cane, stones, etc., are immortalized and resist being forgotten.”
“This project emerged in the midst of a pandemic, where confinement and isolation have become constant, and the exploration of mother earth has been closed off. The need to be with nature has become more evident and is now a longing. The city, for me, is an artificial paradise that suffocates with smog, gray concrete, and the sounds of police sirens and ambulances, clashing with the lifeless nature under the large buildings. This is a composition of confinement in a concrete city.”
Marilyn Boror Bor
Fire
Digital photography and video
2020
“I missed my family surrounding the warmth of the fire, the chicken inside the kitchen, and I placed offerings of white Cuilco, ocote, and reconsidered the reading of the fire; I had forgotten the beauty of placing cashew seeds in the center of the fire to eat them once the fire goes out, I had forgotten the shape of the cups that melt around the fire.”
PH Joel
Fotography: Sigh in the face of uncertainty
Sculpture: Classic update
Video: Classic update
2020
“This project contains a work of photography, a video, and a photographed ceramic piece (for this virtual exhibition). The video is a recreation of an archaeological excavation and the discovery of the ceramic piece (pictured here)! It is worth mentioning that the clay cup is a reproduction, with subtle modifications, of a famous one found in Petén, Guatemala (now at the Princeton Museum, USA). Finally, the photograph of the couple in a milpa is set in Chiapas in a Maya settlement in the Lacandon Jungle (where the artist and others have recovered pieces from the Classic Maya period).
This photo depicts the artist’s father-mother during Covid times, when the main message is being confirmed: return to the land, to the origins, to cultural tradition.”
“Every catastrophe that happens, whether hurricanes, earthquakes, or the current pandemic, is always met with our rituals and traditional medicine that our mothers and grandmothers know. The photograph was a visual note of my reflection on this moment we are going through. In it, I capture my parents with elements that are frequently used to perform cures for different ailments that arise in the village.”
“Despite the temporal distance between the photograph and the polychrome cup in codex style, both share the essence of our worldview as Indigenous peoples, that is, the rituals.”
“On the surface of the cup, two masked figures can be seen preparing the sacrifice of a human being to a God of the Underworld.
The distrust of governments and the institutions that make them up, a product of our historical memory, prevents us from going to hospitals, preferring our own healing methods, knowing that our fate is in the hands of God.”
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Manuel Chavajay
Wa´aal (Famine)
Sculpture
2020
“It is the spirits of our ancestors who accompany us on the first of November. We offer them food, give them honey, extend our hand, and pray, telling our ancestors: You are beneath the cross; may your spirit rest, and may you visit us in these moments; receive the little we have. We finish by saying: We will see you next year; be our intermediary; we will be waiting for you next year.”
Ja qatee ya' nii siilanii
Video
2020
“It is a pot from Amatenango, Chiapas, on which Chavajay has written the word in Tz’utujil ‘Wa’aal,’ which approximately means famine. During a residency in Chiapas in 2018, Chavajay became deeply interested in ceramics as both a utilitarian and artistic Maya object, found on both sides of the border. It has become a symbolic object of its opposite: instead of filling the vessel with drink, it is empty, with the word representing scarcity. The pitchers – made of plastic in Guatemala – are frequently sold in southern Chiapas. That commercial route was closed due to the coronavirus.”
Saúl Kak
Recipe to survive in times of crisis
Video
2020
“Unfortunately, while in the city of San Cristóbal de Las Casas, the health emergency ‘Covid-19’ took us by surprise, a highly dangerous bug. The economic system in which we live has made us dependent on products that come from outside, without knowing the preparation processes, ingredients, etc. Unfortunately, many of us who come from the communities have adopted this way of life, leaving behind the wisdom of our parents, forgetting our medicine and food.”
Survival
Collage
2020
“There are two ways of life: 1) The one that has been imposed on us, which comes from outside and is like conquest. And 2) the one from the countryside, with which we grew up, that our parents and grandparents taught us. The food we grow ourselves, in the second system, is also a kind of medicine because it gives us health. In this pandemic, in this time of crisis, the people from the countryside will continue to live.”
The bomb
Acrylic on canvas
2020
“We see the use of sprayers in the fields to fumigate pests. But we witness how the land is being affected, as the plants become dependent on them. If herbicides, fertilizers, or similar chemicals aren’t applied, the production is minimal or nonexistent.”
“The image of the sprayer represents self-contamination to me, but seeing it in another context has reshaped my idea of its use. In this case, it is being used to defend against the Covid-19 virus that stalks the peoples of the world.”
“In this painting, I portray the campesino (peasant farmer) defending life from pandemics—not only from Covid-19 but also from extractive pandemics. The symbol of Covid-19 reveals the world order with its renewed attempts to dispossess our territories under the discourse of development and modernity.”
Ángel Poyón
Smudge the words
2020
“Go, hide in the temascal,” our grandmothers and grandfathers would say whenever they sensed a threat. From that correction with the whip, to any so-called civilizing act (health center vaccines, teachers looking for girls and boys to take them to school) that would show up around there—and we’d end up blackening our faces to protect ourselves.”
“Säsäk Nichim-Abraham Gómez
Yaxal ch’ulel-kuxlejal”
Yikleb kuxlejal
Svunal poxiletik
Spoxil kuxlejal
Photography
2020
“In times of pandemic, the memory of the Tsotsil past is brought into the present, heralding a new dawn and another form of resistance. Healing the soul, curing the body with medicinal plants, has been a constant practice among the Maya. In Tsotsil, yaxal means life, nature, water, food abundance, health. Ch’ulel is the soul and the essence of being. Kuxlejal is life in its entirety—person, nature, microorganism. Knowledge of the greenness of plants is the straitjacket that heals the soul and cures the body among the Maya people of the Chiapas Highlands.
Western science succumbs to fear for not having a cure for the coronavirus; for us, the cure lies in the plants and the temazcal. Yaxal poxil becomes the sustainer of our life, our soul, and the strength of our hearts. Yaxal ch’ulel-kuxlejal is the mask against fear and the resistance to death—an announced death, resisted since the time of conquest. We survived the past, we are still here—now—and we will continue on with the healing knowledge of medicinal plants, sustained in memory for our presence in the future.”
Artists
Marilyn Boror Bor
(San Juan Sacatepequez, 1984)
*Marilyn Boror is a Kaqchikel visual artist based in Guatemala City, recognized for her bold and socially committed artistic practice. A graduate in art from the Universidad de San Carlos, her repertoire spans photography, installation, painting, printmaking, and performance. She was selected to participate in the 19th and 20th Paiz Art Biennials and invited to the 22nd edition in 2021, as well as to the Biennial of Peoples in Resistance in Guatemala. Marilyn Boror’s work is included in the Latin American collection of the Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid, Spain, and in the Spanish Ministry of Culture’s collection. Her work has been exhibited in Germany, Spain, Mexico, the United States, Canada, Venezuela, Chile, and throughout Central America. Her sister Delcy Boror, also an artist, collaborates with Marilyn in the composition Todos queremos ir a la montaña (We All Want to Go to the Mountain).
Facebook: Marilyn Boror Bor
Instagram: @marilynboror
marilynboror@gmail.com
“Xul” Performance by Marilyn Boror Bor
This performance begins with xul: [šul] – flute, ocarina, chirimía, whistle. ¡XUL must be liberated!
Several clay ocarinas crafted by Guatemalan artisans are set free on bicycles across various neighborhoods of Guatemala City during the quarantine period, where even after five months, we remain locked down—XUL is freed!
A Zoom meeting will be held in which all the XUL will communicate with one another once they become RUXUL (which is the possessed form of xul in Kaqchikel).
Manuel Chavajay
(San Pedro La Laguna, Sololá; 1982)
A native Tz’utujil speaker and lifelong resident of his hometown, San Pedro La Laguna, Manuel Chavajay is one of the most recognized Guatemalan artists both nationally and internationally. He graduated from the National School of Fine Arts Rafael Rodríguez Padilla and pursued art history studies at the Institute for Training and Development in Amherst, USA. He has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions in Guatemala, Mexico, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, the United States, Scotland, Nicaragua, Brazil, the Czech Republic, China, and Canada, including a solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in Guatemala City in 2018.
Manuel Chavajay is a key promoter of contemporary art in Maya communities. As a multidisciplinary artist working in painting, drawing, sculpture, video, and installation, his practice embodies a decolonial critique and a powerful affirmation of Indigenous culture, expressed through a blend of irony and a deep, proud connection to his Maya identity.
Facebook: Manuel Chavajay Moralez
Instagram: @manuelchavajay
Ángel Poyón
(San Juan Comalapa, Guatemala; 1976)
Recipient of multiple awards and recognized both nationally and internationally, Ángel Poyón remains deeply rooted in the life, language, and culture of his Kaqchikel hometown. Working in installation, painting, and performance, his practice is marked by the use of a conceptual artistic language “à la Maya.” As Luis Camnitzer writes, “He draws on formal elements but places them in the service of the issues his people face.”
Poyón has exhibited his work in solo shows, in collaboration with his brother Fernando, and in group exhibitions across Guatemala, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Germany, and Mexico.
Facebook: Angel Poyon
Instagram: @angelpoyon
PH Joel
(Ocosingo, Chiapas; 1992)
PH Joel (of Ch’ol and Tsotsil origin) grew up in a locally multicultural environment in the community of Francisco Villa, municipality of Ocosingo—formed by families from multiple Mayan language groups, formerly laborers on haciendas and now autonomous campesinos. Joel (Pérez Hernández) graduated with honors in Anthropology from UNACH in San Cristóbal de Las Casas. His artistic practice stems from in-depth research into the traditions of the ancient Maya of Chiapas and Guatemala, paired with the inventive creation of contemporary faux-archaeological pieces. He combines intellectual boldness with a self-taught mastery of material and manual techniques. He returned to live in his home community during the 2020 pandemic quarantine.
Facebook: PH Joel
Instagram: @pjoelh
Saúl Kak
(Esquipulas Guayabal, Rayón; 1985)
Heir to the ancient Zoque-Olmec culture and a speaker of Zoque, Saúl Kak is an artist equally passionate about painting, performance, and video. Deeply aware of his status as a refugee—his family lost their home in the 1982 eruption of the Chichonal volcano—Kak remains committed to the community that was rebuilt as Nuevo Esquipulas Guayabal, Chiapas. His work is now permeated by the urgent struggle to defend Zoque territory against megaprojects, from dams to mining operations. Kak holds a degree in Visual Arts from UNICACH and has been a recipient of the FONCA grant. Alongside co-director Charles Fairbanks, he received critical acclaim for the feature-length films La Selva Negra and Ecos del Volcán, including Best Documentary at Présence Autochtone: First Peoples Festival in Montreal (2019).
Facebook: Saul Kak
Instagram: @SaulKak
Säsäk Nichim
(Adolfo López Mateos, Huixtán; 1980)
A native Tsotsil speaker, embroiderer, and advisor to organized weavers, Säsäk Nichim (Margarita Martínez) holds a PhD in linguistics and is a professor-researcher at the University of Sciences and Arts of Chiapas (UNICACH). She became involved in photography more than six years ago as co-director of Club Balam (an international project of the Lower Eastside Girls’ Club, focused on photography with young women from Maya communities in Chiapas and New York). More recently, she has brought her passion for photography into her multidisciplinary practice as a post-ethnographic artist. That is, she creates a space where art and anthropology intersect—enriching (and at times unsettling) both fields. Säsäk Nichim is actively engaged in spaces for analysis and reflection on indigenous and intercultural culture, language, and society.
Facebook: Säsäk Nichim Martinez
Instagram: @sasaknichim
Abraham Gómez
(San Juan Chamula, Chiapas; 1977)
Gómez was born and is a community member of Ichinton, a rural settlement in the municipality of Chamula, Chiapas. He combines his artistic practice with his work as a commercial vendor in San Cristóbal de Las Casas. Beginning in 2012, he studied at Gimnasio del Arte Chiapas and, in 2018, participated in the Contemporary Photography Seminar at the Centro de la Imagen and the San Agustín Arts Center (CaSa) in Oaxaca. He was recognized as one of Mexico’s most promising young photographers when he was featured in Develar y Detonar (2015). His group photography exhibitions include Chiapaneco – Contemporary Indigenous Photography and Film from Chiapas at the Galerie der Kunststiftung Poll in Berlin, Germany, and Entre Thanatos e Hypnos in San Cristóbal de Las Casas.
Facebook: abrham Gomez
Instagram: @abrhamgomez
