Sobre el Montículo de Tierra

Research/ installation
2024

Collaboration with:
Priscila Monserrat Treviño Sepúlveda

Materials:
Clay, basalt, aluminum, cotton blanket, cempasúchil.

Project:
Comité Tlatelolco
Tlatelolco 1008

Exhibition: 
Art Week Mexico

Photography:
Gerardo Sandoval Osio

Sobre le Montículo de Tierra is a series of objects that seek to re-signify the memory of the site of Tlatelolco and the events of defense and sacrifice that have occurred over 500 years.

The objects are presented in an altar configuration, which invites one to contemplate each piece through aroma, light and reflections.

Incense holder

Tlatelolco means “on the mound of sand” or “on the mound of earth.” The clay incense holder represents the islet of earth/sand on which Tlatelolco was founded in 1337. The incense fosters an atmosphere of serenity and meditation. The bright red of the ember recalls the war events with which the foundation began and consecutive years in cycles of conflict and truce with the neighboring city, Tenochtitlan.

Candle holder

A perforated basalt stone, in which a long white candle is introduced to remain upright, rests on a clay block with the inscription “1521.” The year inscribed on the statue marks the Fall of Tlatelolco to the Spanish colonists. The basalt stone commemorates the essential volcanic element in the material culture of the Mexicas of the time, a stone with which they built the ceremonial center of Tlatelolco, destroyed in the conquest. The new light of Catholicism was installed on the Mexica center in the form of the Temple of Santiago, reusing the same basalt.

Canvas

The modernity of Adolfo López Mateos, Mario Pani and the Conjunto Urbano Nonoalco Tlatelolco gave rise to the creation of the current Plaza de las Tres Culturas. The events of the student massacre of 1968 generate a deep wound in Mexican civil society that, in turn, is a reflection of the state of socio-political oppression of the time and that resonates today. A rectangular canvas like Mario Pani's modernity is dyed yellow (like condominiums) with cempasúchil flower, a flower that is offered to the deceased in popular Mexican culture.

Vase

Aluminum is a characteristic material in the buildings of the Nonoalco Tlatelolco Urban Complex. The vase is made of turned aluminum, using materials and processes from Pani's modernity to reflect in its silhouette the stepped faces present in the material remains of the altépetl of Mexico-Tlatelolco. Its formal configuration resembles some of the spherical vases with conical mouths found in Mexica ceremonial centers, symbolizing ritual and offering.

The tule that grows from the vase represents the resistance of the people who are rooted in the territory and their culture in the face of events of conflict and oppression.

Mirror

A circular mirror is located in the apartment Tlatelolco 1008, positioned in such a way that, through the tule, it reflects the Plaza de las Tres Culturas and, in an easterly direction, the rising of a new sun.