Since the beginning of her career in the 1970s, Graciela Iturbide has portrayed various regions of Oaxaca. From its people to its spaces, ing through the less common elements or events of its territory or that happen unnoticed, but whose presences constitute fundamental parts of the narratives of this region. Trusting chance and surprise, Iturbide has found vestiges of singular or collective stories in the most ordinary objects, which articulate fragments of a reality that is perhaps not visible to the naked eye.
This stone, which could be one of many, is distinguished by the ropes that bind it and the leaves that lie superimposed. In the Mixtec region of Oaxaca, the worship of sacred bundles is a traditional ritual that has been preserved since Pre-Columbian times. In the Mixtec codices, although little studied, there are records of religious manifestations associated with the stones - not only precious ones - that were tied and arranged with ropes or cloth to pay tribute to the rulers or to celebrate the periodic festivities of the community.
Although Iturbide's shoot probably did not attend to this specific relationship, the strangeness of the found object allows us to establish unexpected relationships of meaning with respect to a particular location and imaginary. What Iturbide finds in the ordinary and the poetic form into which her lens transforms it, are the testimonies of the lives and realities of a place.
AC, February 2021.
Since the beginning of her career in the 1970s, Graciela Iturbide has portrayed various regions of Oaxaca. From its people to its spaces, ing through the less common elements or events of its territory or that happen unnoticed, but whose presences constitute fundamental parts of the narratives of this region. Trusting chance and surprise, Iturbide has found vestiges of singular or collective stories in the most ordinary objects, which articulate fragments of a reality that is perhaps not visible to the naked eye.
