REBECA
MÉNDEZ

Ascenso de Tejedoras, 2018
3-channel video installation, color, sound. 31:19 minutes, loop. Dimmensions variable. At MACO: 8 x 50 feet.

By Rebeca Méndez, with the Hernández Quero Family

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. The name Mitla is derived from the Nahuatl name Mictlán, the underworld of Aztec mythology. I researched the history and culture of the Zapotec, of Mitla and weaving, and got to know the family through spending several weeks of conversation, meals together and healing ceremonies performed by one family member, Gildardo, who is also the keeper of knowledge of the family and of Mitla. Mitla has long relied on Gildardo’s oral tradition to preserve a record of its past.

I proposed to the family and the museum a film project focused on an indigenous cultural story of transformation and for the healing of the earth. 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 there are various accounts of women weavers represented as warrior goddesses. In the Codex Borgia or Codex Yoalli Ehēcatl, a Mesoamerican ritual and divinatory manuscript, there is a depiction of the weaving goddess Tlazolteotl, which became the base 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 Mezoamerica 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. Mitla’s architectural designs were most likely inspired by textile patterns 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 use the ‘Telar de Cintura’ (backstrap loom) technique learned from their ancestors, these huipiles were woven utilizing a ‘Telar de Pedal’ (pedal loom), an artisanal weaving method that uses the artisan’s feet to alternately lift and lower the thread.

Artist’s description: 

For a world facing social and environmental crises, Ascent of Weavers is a call for awakening and action for collective healing of the earth. Entities of white, red, blue, and black embody cycles of the sun, the heavens, and the underworld and directions of human life in prehispanic 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.