Luna
Research/ objects
2019
Materials:
Galeana’s alabaster, ixtle (agave fibers), leather.
Project:
Tierra de Saberes
Exhibition:
Design Week Mexico, Inédito 2019 - CDMX
Design and direction:
Gerardo Sandoval Osio
Design team:
Priscila Monserrat Treviño Sepúlveda, Mónica Guzmán Ochoa.
Photography:
Luis Talancón
Jorge G. Balleza
Gerardo Sandoval Osio
Production:
Francisco Charles, sculpture
Reyes Flores Pérez, rope making
Juan Esparza, leather work
Acknowledgments:
Tierra de Saberes
Cristóbal López Carrera, historian
Nydia Prieto, social phycologist
Jorge G. Balleza, designer
“Luna” (moon) is a set of objects that revisit cultural aspects from the northeastern Mexican pre-hispanic ethnicities through the use of local materials and techniques; they are the first approach of a culture-material research that digs into the now extinct native hunter-gatherers and the crafts that survive in between the mountains, plains and xeric shrublands of Nuevo León, Mexico.
The alabaster tableware presents a series of grooves that reinterpret the lunar counting engraved in the rocks of Presa de La Mula archaeological site in Nuevo León, México. The northeastern ethnic groups used this carvings to count down the moon phases, a way to understand the lifecycle of their natural environment, the correct season to hunt certain animals and to collect seeds, grains, fruits and materials from the native flora, even their own breeding cycle. This Lunar Calendar was studied and interpreted by the anthropologist William Breen Murray which is one of his most important contributions to understand our pre-columbian ethnic ancestors.
The ixtle (lechuguilla agave fiber) bag represents the essential personal item of the semi-nomadic ethnic groups and their main material resource to craft objects. The lechuguilla ixtle recollection has a strong relationship with the phases of the moon; collecting agave leaves on a full moon makes sure that the fibers will be strong and durable, a knowledge that still survives in the last ixtle rope makers of northeast Mexico.
The sealing and strap joinery cylinders are fabricated with alabaster, representing the link between the moon and the harvesting of food and material resources.
