Graciela Iturbide says that when she visited the Ethnobotanical Garden of Oaxaca, she saw the most natural sculptural forms in its plants. Her friend and colleague Francisco Toledo (Juchitan, 1940 - Oaxaca, 2019) confirmed the obvious: "They are not sculptures, they are plants." 'Untitled' (1990s) was not taken in the gardens of Oaxaca, but on the Yucatan coast; however, the anecdote serves to point out the tensions between urban and rural life and between humans and nature, which have interested Iturbide throughout her career.
On one of her trips to Merida, Iturbide photographed what is known as coastal dune scrub, which little resembles the typical representations of the region and which, nevertheless, constitutes a key element in ecological and preservation . This species constitutes the main barrier against the effects of natural phenomena such as high tides and hurricanes, and during the last decades it has suffered a serious deterioration due to immoderate urban and tourist growth.
Unlike her other works, here there is neither a staging nor a posing figure; nevertheless, the structure of the thicket is typical of a territory, its tradition, and its history. The sculptural and anthropomorphic qualities of the vegetation result from the perception of the real towards the construction of the fantastic imaginary of a territory.
Although landscape photography is not a common genre in Iturbide's work, in her series 'Travel Notebooks' - of which this image is a part - she seems to make an approach to various elements of the environment to build a landscape without categories that avoids the nationalist associations of visual identity, in this case so typical of the landscape tradition of Mexico so as to call attention to life in the order of nature.
AC, February 2021.
References
gracielaiturbide.org
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QhISeV9eiI
https://issuu.com/centrodeartealcobendas/docs/cat_logo_graciela_iturbide_fotograf
https://mfa.org/news/graciela-iturbides-mexico-spanish
https://www.inah.gob.mx/boletines/2653-graciela-iturbide
https://www.fundacionmapfre.org/arte-y-cultura/exposiciones/historico/ano-2009/graciela-iturbide/
Graciela Iturbide says that when she visited the Ethnobotanical Garden of Oaxaca, she saw the most natural sculptural forms in its plants. Her friend and colleague Francisco Toledo (Juchitan, 1940 - Oaxaca, 2019) confirmed the obvious: "They are not sculptures, they are plants." 'Untitled' (1990s) was not taken in the gardens of Oaxaca, but on the Yucatan coast; however, the anecdote serves to point out the tensions between urban and rural life and between humans and nature, which have interested Iturbide throughout her career.
