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JUAREZ SERIES
“Espero el dia que podamos recuperar la ciudad y salgamos, bailemos, cantemos, juguemos en sus calles. Anhelo el día que podamos amar, reír y vivir de nuevo en Ciudad Juarez, en Mexico.” ~ Sarah Cortez, autora
JUAREZ TZOMPANTLI
Installation | National Museum of Mexican Art | Chicago, IL 2011
In pre-Columbian Mexico, the sacred ball game was an essential element in the ceremonial practices among several major cultures. At the game’s end it was customary to sacrifice the players and impale their heads upon a wall. The Aztecas called this wall Tzompantli.
Artist Statement:
Since 1993, the city of Juarez, Mexico has endured an unprecedented number of murders of young women. Most of those women have been maquiladoras (factory workers). Like most Americans, I was unaware of this atrocity. An atrocity that has been occurring literally at our doorstep. In 2007, I began a series of works about the Juarez murders in an effort to raise awareness about this tragedy. When I began to work on the concept design for this installation, it seemed to me that there were cultural and historical parallels between the murdered women of Juarez and the sacrificial victims of the ancient Pre-Columbian ball game: all were young, all were without social or political influence, and all were the price society was willing to pay to protect the status quo. Juarez Tzompantli is a visual metaphor for the violent deaths of hundreds of young women in Ciudad Juarez that for reasons unknown have gone unresolved by the Mexican government. The wall in this case is the border between the United States and Mexico
The Installation
Six fence posts create the Tzompantli. Imbedded in the dirt and gravel of the Chihuahua desert, this Tzompantli is the symbolic marker of the remains of so many young women. The barbed wire with its red barbs hints at the blood spilled. The death masks atop each post evolve from the anonymity of a featureless form to a face that is distinctly that of a young woman. I invite the viewer to decide how best to interpret the antlers above the central mask: innocence, myth, resistance, beauty, strength, vulnerability, purity, all are possibilities. The “lilies” represent the known victims, a fraction of the actual number. The single white lily represents the youngest victims: little girls who will never grow up; who will never be brides; who will never be mothers; who will never fulfill their dreams. Finally, like a scream that fades slowly and painfully into the desert night, the shadows become the fleeting echoes of these acts of violence multiplied again, and again, and again.
¡Ni Una Mas!
The Weight of Silence - by Divya Rajan
selected works
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