PATHBREAKING ART FROM THE PERIPHERY:
A Conversation with Contemporary Mayan Artists
Join us for a "Learn at Lunch" event as we are introduced to the art and artists of Espacio MUY, a gallery and workshop of Mayan & Zoque artists based in San Cristóbal de las Casas (Chiapas, México). Working across various media and grappling with themes as diverse as immigration and globalization, these artists are becoming recognized as pathbreakers in a new wave of indigenous art. Hosted by John Burstein '74 and Thor Anderson '73, artists Margarita (Säsâknichim) Martínez, and Gerardo K'ulej will engage in a conversation about the creative process-- as artists, as members of their communities, leaders of the MUY project and striking out into the contemporary art world.
Information on Espacio MUY and on the presenters at the Learn at Lunch: www.galeriamuy.org .
Säsäknichim (Margarita) Martínez Pérez
Säsäknichim (Margarita) Martínez Pérez, a linguist, translator, and audiovisual artist, practices photography, video, textile intervention, and embroidery, and maintains a significant academic career. Säsäknichim holds a PhD in Anthropological Linguistics and is a professor and researcher in the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Sciences and Arts of Chiapas.
Since 2005, she has conducted ethnographic and linguistic documentation research among the Tsotsil Maya of the Highlands of Chiapas, and co-directs Stsebetik Bolom, a photography and activism collective involved with young Tsotsil Maya women from Chiapas.
For the past 15 years, Säsäknichim has used photography and video for the ethnographic and linguistic documentation of the Tsotsil language. His photographs document Mayan children participating in daily life and ritual activities, or playing at emulating their parents' work. Through his photographic documentation, we see a child sitting and sucking on a candy after dancing as a max, or two siblings blowing on corn to clean it.
As an embroiderer and textile artist, Säsäknichim is a facilitator and member of the Arte Yabtel Bats'i Antsetik collective. Working with master textile artists, Säsäknichim documents the processes of Mayan embroidery and weaving through photography and video.
Gerardo K'ulej
Gerardo K’ulej (Gerardo Alfredo Culej Vazquez), generative, multidisciplinary artist and a student of science. He explores his contemporary Tsotsil identity, among the multi-tensions with the Lum-glogal (global world): and defines his art as abstract bio-Mayan, “My art is not derived only by science or Mayan symbolism, but more good for my sensitivity as a Mayan artist.
His creative process developes in three states: solid (the creation of inert objects, sculptures positioned in space), liquid (kinetic works in a space-time level) and hyper-liquid (generative art).
For him, “the appropriation of technological resources is the path for intercultural transformation, a way of articulating the futuristic Mayan-Tsotsil vision and the possibility of dismantling mechanisms or objects foreign to it, such as communication devices both visual and auditory”.
Art transgresses borders and transcends cultures.
In 2016, he had his first exhibition, “Yik’al Xojobal” (Abstract Art). In 2017 he held his first residency at Galería MUY, concluding in an exhibition titled “Science and spirituality in Mayan visual art”. Since then he has participated in different artistic group projects, making visible the quality of contemporary Mayan/Zoque art and its social relationship.
John Burstein HR74
As director emeritus of Espacio MUY and a promoter of local art projects, Burstein co-directs the cultural space and its public relations, and coordinates MUY's curatorial activities. Burstein first arrived in Chiapas in 1973 and has since founded several civil society organizations in Chiapas with an emphasis on development, public policy, and art
Thor Anderson HR73
Thor Anderson (HR ’73, graduated ’75) worked as a carpenter, landscaper, and film technician before returning for a PHD in Social Anthropology (UC Berkeley, '96). A specialist in ritual, the use of public spaces, and visual anthropology, Anderson did fieldwork in Chiapas (Mexico), Basque Country (Spain), and San Francisco (California). While teaching anthropology as a lecturer at various Bay Area universities, he assisted his partner, Consuelo Faust, with her dance company. He is currently splitting his time between volunteering, film projects, working with their dance company, and the duties (and joys) of being a new grandfather.
