PAR A PAR, Mexico City 2008

MAMAZ COLLECTIVE SHOW
November 2008 / Manuel Felguérez / Multimedia Centre CNA / México City


Ana Gómez, 2008

The Par-A-Par Festival took place in Mexico City in November 2008 with the objective of promoting exchanges between artists, scientists and activists. In other words, it strove to create a creative dialogue and a set of agreements based on the analysis and production of projects with real applications in social spheres.

During seven days, people from different backgrounds and experience levels came together to germinate projects that contemplated the creative use of technology to create public spaces for critical discussion.

Emilia Sandoval, 2008

The MAMAZ collective has a peaceful resistance project focused on promoting social critique in order to raise consciousness about the problems that corn and food in general face today. This project fit with the objective of the festival and so, we participated with our El MAIZ ES NUESTRA VIDA/ CORN IS OUR LIFE exhibition.

Sara Corestein, 2008

The MAMAZ collective expresses its freedom of speech in the art field. We consider active participation a necessity. Thus, we have gathered women—artists, craftswomen, and creative people in general—interested in speaking about the theme of nutrition and corn through their own form of action. Ten of the collective’s artists, using different media, spoke of the history, the myth, the nutritional importance, the modification of genetics, and the rising price of corn.

In conjunction with the show, discussions were held about the use of accessible resources to spread the news about the project.

Lucero González, 2008

Gabriela Sánchez, 2008



Ira Bernstorff, 2008



Salime harp, 2008

Participants: Emilia Sandoval, Lucero González, Ira Bernstorff, Ana Gómez, Sara Corestein, Salime Harp, Minerva Hernández, Gabriela Sánchez, Christa Klinckwort y P. Castellanos.

Market Bag

Casa Lamm, 2008

The Market Bag, which complements the “Maize is Our Life” project, is an additional itinerant exhibit of art-objects. Other women artists residing in the area in which the exhibit is being hosted by a cultural institution Women from the collective are joined by other women artists residing in the area in which the exhibit is being hosted by a cultural institution. The institution holds workshops, which invite and integrate these women into the project. The two-day workshop includes some of the original artists, guest curators, and other invited locals who are working in this subject matter. At the end, the participants create two pieces for the market bag.

The first day, the women participants view a brief DVD about the history of corn. They discuss the difference between native seeds and genetically altered ones, the situation in which native seeds find themselves around the world, and ultimately the flavor of food made with native corn which brings us back to our cultural memory. This is the most important reason for keeping the seeds and our memory alive. During the second day, the women begin creating a piece while they examine other pieces already in the exhibit. They also observe other related pieces that have been exhibited in other shows as examples of what kind of artwork can be considered for the Market Bag exhibit.

Casa Lamm, 2008

These workshops are free of cost to interested women. They are given in the cities in which the exhibit is being shown, allowing the art-object exhibit to grow and raising consciousness of the global predicament. The women work with the same concept as that which inspired the “Maize is Our Life” exhibit. The themes are directly related to corn, the seeds and cultural memory. The women generally have some craft experience. They range in age and represent various cultures, economic status, and social levels
As the women create their objects, they tell their story about what corn as a symbol of globalization and worldwide strife means to them. These stories are documented for the following show, which serve to give future women an idea about what other women think about corn and what they are doing to save native seeds and their cultural memory. This project was exhibited in Casa Lamm in Mexico City and in the Santo Domingo Museum in San Cristobal, Chiapas in 2008.

Curtiduría, 2008

Green Corner, Mexico City. 2008
Special thanks to Armando and Gabriela, from Itanoní restaurant, Oaxaca

Green Corner, Mexico City. 2008
Special thanks to Armando and Gabriela, from Itanoní restaurant, Oaxaca

San Cristobal de las casas, 2008

San Cristobal de las casas, 2008

San Cristobal de las casas, 2008

Natural History Museum, Mexico City 2007

Germaine Gómez Haro

El maíz es nuestra vida / Corn is our life

In our country, the relationship between man and corn dates back to the dawn of Mesoamerican civilization and travels far beyond the mere nutritional factor. Corn cultivation determined economic, political and social devellopement in ancient Mexico. Hence, it is considered the “primordial plant”—the sustenace of the people who gave credit to one of the most important gods in the precolumbian world. Those in the Aztec world called her Centeotl, and in her masculine state-Chicomecoatl. She was patroness of terrestrial fertility. Xilonen is the name given to the tender corncobs, while Ilmatecuhtli represents the old, dry cobs. Among the Zapotecs, the patron of corn is Pitao Cozobi, and according to Popul Vuh legends, the gods created man from cornmeal. Innumerable works of art relay the importance of the corn cult in the Mesoamerican society. The indigenous people have conserved and perpetuated these traditions throughout the centuries, which form the most intrinsic foundations of our identity today as Mexicans.

“Maize is our life,” proclaim 48 artists native to or residents of Oaxaca. They speak by exhibiting their forms of expression in the exhibit entitled with the same phrase. It was present in the Natural History Museum until February of 2009.

Concern about the dangers that genetically altered crops impose the survival of native corn led this group of artists to create an exhibit which would eventually include painting, sculpture, prints, installation, art-object, photography, and video. Artists and founding members of the Curtiduria (an alternative art space dedicated to the exhibition of and the promotion of, contemporary art in Oaxaca), Demian Flores and Marietta Bernstorff, launched a call for entries for women wishing to create artwork based on the corn theme. More than one hundred entries pored in. The show exhibited a selection of fifty-two pieces of various media with the intention of expanding the show and altering it to include new participants. Another motive of this singular exhibit was to reunite well-known artists, blossoming artists, and social activists in order to form a common voice that would protest the blindness and the obstinacy of those who support transnational corporations that are contaminating the Mexican farmland with their diabolic genetically-altered seeds for the economic benefit of a handful of people. The irreversible health damage that these altered crops pose is also grave. It is imperative that we raise awareness in the Mexican people of the severity of the problems caused by the loss of our ancient traditions and values, which have given our now endangered culture its extraordinary richness.

Juanita Vasquez, Zapotec social activist and community leader from Yalalag, was present at the opening. She has been instrumental in defending native corn in Oaxaca. She advised many of the women who participated in the show about the fundamental role that corn plays in the daily life of the indigenous people. “We are digging a grave here in our country,’ exclaimed Juanita, “We are burying our culture. No matter the cost, we have to save the corn that it our sacred inheritance.”

Among the various exhibited works, the artists expressed their very personal interpretations on the importance of corn and its close ties to indigenous women and the land. It can be considered a sacred plant. The vocabulary and techniques employed were numerous. The genius and the audacity in which this critical theme was expressed were noteworthy. Such is Izmalli Coca’s case. She contributed the piece entitled “Esteril o Fructifera (Sterile or Fruitful),” which recreated the history of Sara, a mannequin representing Mother Earth, dressed in a gown made with pieces of tortilla and corn grains.

The “Maize is Our Life” theme poses an interesting reflection based on humor, irony, and artistic beauty, as poet Natalia Toledo puts it. “Scatter purple grains across your petate in order to learn about the cob from which you are made. Thresh your body on the comal and its fire. On this earth, we are grains of corn.”

La Jornada, Sunday October 14th, 2007