Continuity Reinscribed
The works presented in this exhibition span a period of about ten years. Museo del Imaginario/imaginary museum is part of an ongoing project (officially founded in December 2006) although it had already initiated fieldwork and various productions much earlier. It is the canopy for which to explore various issues regarding indgenous textiles through museum practices.
The focus of the project takes up the notion of the historic gaze toward Mesoamerican indigenous women. It sustains how a daily life activity is an art form – particularly the making of the textiles that clothe these women and their families. Their textile making has served to give continuity to beliefs, depite thw fact that they, the makers, have been constant victims of agression over the centuries, for which they have hidden themselves in the shadows of their hearths, and carried on. Today these textiles are valued as part of national culture in Mexico and are used to decorate various civic festivities. As works of art, some of these textiles are included in important collections, both private and institutional. Importantly, these textiles have transiited from their remote sites of origin to also form part of the bodies of women in cities. Their existence is polysemic. They have resisted conquest and prejudice, marginalization and economic severity; they are endangered yet continue; they have deep meanings and are also viewed as commodities; they, as well as their makers, are inserted in our multifarious Present.