In this work, Duarte with EDLEO, continue a three year conversation with the small autonomous community of Elambo Bajo of La Otra Campana (The Other Campaign), within the highlands of Chiapas, Mexico. The Other Campaign is an extension of the Zapatista Movement that came to the world’s public eye in the winter of 1994 as they briefly took control of five cities in Chiapas, Mexico in an armed indigenous uprising. EDELO brought artist, educators, students and cultural workers to learn about this particular communities four year process of autonomy in building a community store, government center, pharmacy, and organized a community policing. EDELO was able to support in the process of providing light for their government center, organized cultural events in the participation of international and local students to learn from their process.
Burial was a game created to bury one another in an attempt to invite a moment of a magical realism into the prevailing effects of colonialism. In the end, the "other" or outsider was buried in a public setting to acknowledge the history that our bodies carry.
The work was presented at the Fresno Art Museum. Aesthetic considerations were made for a museum audience. Architectural, social, physical, and racial tensions where felt along the architectural weight as the slab of dirt protrudes from the wall holding the figure into place. With in this setting, the histories that our bodies carry are placed on stage along side a public in full participation within the performance piece.
Fresno Art Museum
January 2013. Elambo Bajo Chiapas Mexico, December 2012
Performance-Arturo Villahermosa
Fresno Art Museum
Video segment of comunity performance
Mia Eve Rollow
Collaborators
Artist and former Minister of Culture for the Black Panther Party, Emory Douglas, gets escorted by children into the direction of an open whole on the earth completing a circle of generational gaps of the struggles of the Black Panther Party and the current Zapatista movement.
Artist Mia Eve Rollow drags her limbs towards her own burial. Mia is a performance and sculptural artist that suffered a spinal cord injury in 2007.
Arturo Villanueva
Local tattoo artist Art man in a three hour performance piece.
Ramiro Martinez
Builder, artist, collaborator with in the Fresno Art Museum Building process, performs with artist Todd Brown art the Fresno Art opening.
Video still- El AMbo Bajo, Chiapas Mexico
Rain Catchers. Three day arts festival 2010. El Ambobajo Chiapas MX.
© Caleb Duarte