Antonia Bruce has teaching the process of making cyanotype prints to Anais, daughter of Marietta Bernstorff and Antonio Turok. Sharing knowledge and creativity is a key element of our residency in Oaxaca. Anais has been helping Antonia with her large prints of the maize, and has produced several of her own, including the one below- made up of thousands pieces of corn.
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Performance
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Having attended Polina Porras Sivolobova’s Performance Art workshop and spent many long hours in the studio and the Library studying the art and practicing, ‘Monsanto and the Milpa, the Milpa and Monsanto’ was birthed, a 20 minute solo performance exploring the subject and characters that pervade the corn debate in Mexico. This included the dance and song of the character of the mother of maize, the women that that stand for the grassroots; growing, preparing and cooking corn in the milpas, walking through the generations of corn based culture in Mexico. The other character arrived on the stage holding a potentially transgenic corn (from a friends garden in San Augustin), a money bearing monster ‘the threat’, a coercive friend. The stage became a map of thought and concepts, from ‘the solution series’ of my drawings to a time line of industrialisation and how this threatens local trade, the performance ended with the destruction of industrially produced products in a cloud of dust, centre stage. Thanks to all that came to see it. Thanks to my fellow performers and to Polina for supporting this huge step for me in making performance art.
To see more images from Roses performance and the rest of the evening, see our facebook page.
Rose Arbuthnott
MAMAZ
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On Thursday the 31st of July, we were invited by Marietta Bernstorff to visit the Mamaz group in Tanivet, about an hour and half outside of Oaxaca.
MAMAZ is a non-profit women’s art collective, with headquarters in Oaxaca and arose from "the the collective questioning and reflection on the state of our nutritional base, maize."
"Our projects focus on bringing together women whom share and teach each other about what is happening to our local food supply. "
The project began with an invitation from Ac Ferdanmi of Oaxaca, an organisation promoting the development of women, children and communities in the state of Oaxaca.
With the MAMAZ, Marietta has been working with women in Tanivet for four years, teaching them the skill of patchwork and embroidery, and helping them to reach a US market. As agriculture and specifically maize is traditional in the area, the women are encouraged to explore their memory of maize cultivation, using recycled fabrics to tell stories of their experiences.
The stories often describe the significant impact immigration has had on the women and their families. All the women we met had husband who either were, or had been living in the United States. This has led to a considerable loss of traditional knowledge and skill.
Juana, the spokes woman for the group in Tanivet, has taken over from her husband and tends the maize herself. Having worked all day in the fields, she struggles with the delicacy of embroidery, which means her work does not sell at the same prices as some of the others. However, although her stye was rougher, I thought it had an honesty and integrity that was very moving.
As well as being an alternative means of income for, it was clear to see that the work also had other benefits, including empowering the women with an understanding of business. Marietta described how, although initially being a cause for suspicion, the womens' work has brought them new respect from their husbands.
Marietta will continue to work with this group until they have become self-sustainable; either selling the work through their own connections in the US, or establishing themselves within the craft markets around Oaxaca. This production gives them the opportunity to think further about their experiences and environment, as well as developing a skill they can pass on to their children.
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Anna Bruce
Dance
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Stephen Moynihan is developing a dance, as part of the First Food residency, influenced by looking at traditional dances from the Oaxacan region.
Liquid Light
Anna Bruce uses 'liquid light' to explore ways of printing photographically onto different surfaces. The chemical photo sensitises the surface, producing a high contrast black and white image. Anna is using images of the milpa system, including corn and amaranthe, as well as the crops themselves. They become surfaces or tools for photographic printing and mark-making.
Cyanotype
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Antonia Bruce washing down a print outside CaSa.
Antonia works with cyanotype; a photographic process using ammonium iron citrate and potassium ferricyanide to create a cyan-blue print.
See more images of the process on our facebook page.
Drawings
Jessie Buchanan making drawings exploring agricultural systems.
See more pictures of Jessie's work on our facebook page
Fresco
I took part in a fresco workshop last week. My teacher Jesus Gonzalez Gutierrez learnt the technique from Diego Rivera's assistant. We talked a lot about what was true Mexican technique and what was Italian. I made the design to look like like part of a codex; it depicts the aztec god Tezcatlipoca (pronounced Tez-cah-tlee-poh-ka). His name means “Smoking Mirror” and he often represented an evil power. Tezcatlipoca was the patron of the night, of the north, and in many aspects represented the opposite of Quetzalcoatl. I drew him holding a red corn stalk.
I was trying to find an image to represent the transgenic corn debate and thought DNA and godliness had enough in common that this image could mean 'what would happen if the DNA of corn ended up in the wrong hands.' the DNA of corn now is in the wrong hands and here is the symbol!
The technique of fresco consists of adhering layers of sand and lime mixture to a stone or concrete wall and painting on the surface with water and pigments while it is still fresh (a fresco) after 8 hours the painting is absorbed into the surface of the wall so that it will last for 2000 years or more. Lets hope the building is still there, Thus preserving a historic moment. heritage against transgenico!
Rose's finished fresco from a workshop with Jesus Gonzalez.
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Milpa system at Alba Garcia's
Our first day out in the fields was with Alba Garcia, who we met through the charity Puente. She uses the traditional ‘milpa’ system to grow a combination of corn and amaranthe, as well as beans and hibiscus. Most of the amaranthe has already been harvested, but we saw fields being freshly ploughed and new seed being planted.
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| Dried amaranthe from Alba Garcia |
CaSa
The initial group of five UK artists have arrived in Oaxaca Mexico, and have studio space at CaSa (Centro de las Artes, San Agustin).
This incredible building was used as a mill for over a hundred years, only finishing production in the 1980s. The site was revived by local Oaxacan artist, Francisco Toledo in 2000, and is currently a centre for the arts.
The First Food artists will be based here until the end of August.
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