A single-channel version of the original 3-channel video installation.
By Rebeca Méndez with the Hernández-Quero Family.
Commissioned sound composition by Drew Schnurr.
Ascent of Weavers was commissioned by the Museum of Contemporary Art in Oaxaca, Mexico. The curators’ premise was to create a new work of art in collaboration with a local family of artisans. My collaborators are the Hernández Quero family, weavers of Zapotec descent from Mitla, home to the most important prehispanic religious center of the Zapotec culture, revered as the city of the dead. Mitla is derived from the Nahuatl name Mictlán, the Aztec underworld. I researched the history and culture of the Zapotec, specifically in Mitla, and the art of weaving. I got to know the family through several weeks of conversation, meals together, and healing ceremonies performed by one family member, Gildardo, who is also the keeper of the family's knowledge and that of Mitla. Mitla has long relied on Gildardo’s oral tradition to preserve a record of its past.
I proposed a film project to the family, focusing on an indigenous cultural story of transformation and the earth's healing. Gildardo adapted his individual healing ceremony to a healing ceremony for the Earth. Back home in Los Angeles, I came across a research paper called “Women Weavers, Warrior Goddesses: Textile Tradition in the Zapotec Region of Southern Oaxaca” by the Mexican ethnographer Professor Damian Gonzalez Perez. In Zapotec mythology, various accounts of women weavers are represented as warrior goddesses. In the Codex Borgia, also known as the Codex Yoalli Ehēcatl, a Mesoamerican ritual and divinatory manuscript, there is a depiction of the weaving goddess Tlazolteotl, which served as the basis for my representation of the warrior goddess. My other characters were based on the directions of human life in prehispanic Zapotec civilization. They personified the cycles of the sun, the heavens, and the underworld.
The traditional garment worn by indigenous women in Mesoamerica is called a huipil. Throughout my video, I draw visual parallels between the geometry of the huipil and the architecture of the prehispanic archeological site of Mitla, where we filmed various scenes for the video. Textile patterns likely inspired Mitla’s architectural designs and may represent specific family lineages or geographical places. I designed the actants’ huipiles to represent the directions of human life in prehispanic Zapotec civilization—white for the rising sun, red for the setting sun, blue for the heavens, and black for the underworld. Although the Hernández Quero family also uses the ‘Telar de Cintura’ (backstrap loom) technique learned from their ancestors, these huipiles were woven utilizing a ‘Telar de Pedal’ (pedal loom). This artisanal weaving method uses the artisan’s feet to lift and lower the thread alternately.
For a world facing social and environmental crises, Ascent of Weavers is a call for awakening and collective action to heal the Earth. White, red, blue, and black entities embody cycles of the sun, the heavens, and the underworld, and directions of human life in pre-Hispanic Zapotec civilization. The entities undertake a journey into Mictlan (Lyobaa in Zapotec)—the underworld of the Mixtec mythology—aided by Xolotl (a canine god), who leads them through the underworld’s nine levels. Here, they are challenged by piercing winds and crushing mountains, finally crossing rivers of blood to emerge as goddesses of weaving (Tlazolteotl, or Nohuichana in Zapotec)—warriors leading us to a more just, equitable, and sustainable relationship with our planet.
© 2018 Rebeca Méndez
