Statement
Mythological imaginings
In this work, I explore the crossing of one culture by another and involve the combinations, the omissions and the fading away of a culture. To develop the project, I selected the professional craftsman Pedro Mendoza from Park Colón in Guatemala City, Guatemala. I provided him with a written description of certain figures from Greek mythology, as well as a print of an old vessel or sculpture depicting each character. The instruction was to make a container for each mythological figure, that is often made of papier-mâché, and which is then decorated with paper with different colours (this type of container is termed piñata in Spanish and it has a long history spanning many centuries). The piñatas are intended for fiestas. They are ephemeral structures, created to be destroyed. The form and decoration of each piñata was to be the craftsman’s interpretation of the characteristics of each mythological creature. For this project, each piñata was to be of human proportions.
The craftsman has researched and produced the required piñatas. For me in this project these particular piñatas, that are influenced by mythological creatures, are true sculptures that, on the one hand, represent the creativity and ingenuity of the Guatemalan craftsman. On the other hand, they reveal a certain Guatemalan interpretation of the characters from Greek mythology. The aim of this project was to contrast the imagination of a person from a country with a Mayan cultural heritage, such as Guatemala, with the fantasies from Greek antiquity, a symbol of Western civilization. The created sculptures also allow us to explore the influence that the United States culture has over the generation of new mythologies.
The photographs of the created sculptures were made in public spaces of Guatemala that have references to classical antiquity or to the mythological figure.
