sep-dic 2016 VOL.5
Culture
Education
Paradoxes of innovation and social-economic development a lack of creativity urban art has no boundaries
-Cemento -Cal Calidra -Cal Emilia -Varilla (todas las medidas) -Arena
-Alambre -Alambrรณn -Armex -Yeso -Malla para colados
-Lamina galvanizada -Asbesto -Pegazulejo -Tinacos -Sonotubos
tune
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www.mexicointercultural.org revistamexicointercultural
Content Founder Elizabeth del Castillo Zavala direccion@mexicointercultural.org *** Editor in chief Elizabeth del Castillo Zavala Editorial coordinator Carlos Alberto Reyes Arroyo dirección.editorial@mexicointercultural.org Editorial care and copyediting Berenice Romero bramos1@uc.cl English translator Emmanuel González Genis gs_paragas@hotmail.com *** Art Director and Graphic designer Marcela Barquero Zamora marcela.barquerozam@gmail.com Web designer Marcela Barquero Zamora marcela.barquerozam@gmail.com *** Radio Free Zone Sport culture Eduardo Barragan Reyes *** Market editor and General Inquires Elizabeth Rivero lizrivero@hotmail.com Contact Phones Local: 01 222 7830346 Cellphone: 2222395050 E-mail revistamexicointercul@gmail.com direccion@mexicointercultural.com
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Artifact: a reflection on hatred spech Miguel Agustín López Moreno
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Urban Art: has no boundaries Arturo Vieyra Santos
A lack of creativity Carlos Alberto Reyes Arroyo
12 Paradoxes of innovation and
social-economic development Javier Sánchez Díaz de Rivera
15 Converger Olímpico María Fernanda Monroy Martignón
16 Juan Gerson:
The tlacuilo of the two worlds Pedro David Gómez Sánchez
19 What is Intercultural Coaching? Rocio Prado Castillo
20 The university symphonic band of Puebla
José Antonio Rincón Rincón
MÉXICO INTERCULTURAL, Year 2 #05 September – December 2016 is a quarterly publishing, edited by María del Consuelo Elizabeth del Castillo Zavala; Address: Camino Cuayantla # 1804-B, San Bernardino, Tlazcalancingo, Puebla, Zip Code 72 821, Phone number 783-03-46, www.mexicointercultural.org, Editor in Charge: María del Consuelo Elizabeth del Castillo Zavala. Number rights reservations 04-2016-050411441600-102, Title Legality and Content: Certificado Nº: 16743 , both with record No. CCPRI/3/TC/16/20661. Printed by: Impresos Diego, Priv. 37 Nte. #211 Col. Amor, Puebla, Pue., Zip Code 72140, Phone number 2 48 89 93 María del Consuelo Elizabeth del Castillo Zavala, Camino Cuayantla # 1804-B, San Bernardino, Tlaxcalancingo, Puebla, Zip Code 72 821, this edition was printed on Septembre 2016 with a printing of 1,000 copies. The opinions expressed by the authors do not necessarily reflect the posture of the publishing editor. The partial or total reproduction of contents and pictures of the publishing is strictly forbidden without a previous authorization of the national institute of author rights.
Editor´s Note “There is nothing that education and culture could not correct! “ These were the words that Professor Bardelli, Italian refugee, gave us at the end of a class about enterprise economy to close his course and stay in Mexico. He did not only leave employing strong words about people who decide the path of this beautiful country, but he also offered an oneiric solution to them: Culture and education. It is really difficult to talk about innovation in a time such as this one; we face an era of short loading times and gigantic spoilers that approach the absurd. Men and women nowadays are fully exploited to offer their abilities, qualities and intelligence to create a landscape where ironically the least that they do is stopping to admire that landscape. That is when the children –that I do not have- ask me “What can be done to preserve the natural essence of the complicated being we call human?” To what I can only answer with: Innovate. Innovate in every area, innovate in the thinking of future generations, innovate in giving a vow of confidence in which they will be capable of solving the riddle we have created, innovate believing that the errors can be forgiven, innovate in the eye for an eye and the world will stay blind, innovate thinking that culture has the same value as the world economy, innovating when creating an educational model that contains the values to achieve a respectful, tolerant, and above all, a fraternal humanity. Let us innovate celebrating the differences of the others and not punishing their qualities, let us learn that we are not perfect and we shall never be, but we are smart enough to understand that with the qualities of others, we will get prosperity and transcendence. Let us innovate impeding the cheap ideologies that won´t let us know new cultures, try extraordinary food and make bonds with wonderful people. In México Intercultural we celebrate our fifth edition, thanking all of you readers, writers, collaborators, friends and family members who have supported us with successes and failures the project you have in your hands. In each new magazine we look forward to innovate and offer a different glance to everyone who gives us a priceless and irrecoverable gift: Their time. There are four more months for the year to end and from this moment we wish you the following September, October, November and December to be the best of your lives. Celebrate, enjoy, live and feel what it is to be Mexican no matter where you come from, as the old saying of how chin…ones we the Mexicans are, who are born wherever we want to, no matter the nationality. For Mexico you are one more brother, celebrate your deceased, but celebrate even more those who are alive and enjoy the best of Christmas to start a 2017 full of magic. México Intercultural wishes you four intense months of literature, smiles, dance, love, cinematography, passion, architecture, dreams come true, music, extraordinary trips, sculpture, painting, unforgettable experiences, science, memories, knowledge and above all, culture and education.
A glance of Mexico across the world
Artifact: a reflection on hatred speech Miguel Agustín López Moreno
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ou will see the absolute and impossible us in the glance of the other, the reflection of a ramified and prevailing technique; but maybe you will also see the edge of time, the unfolded reason in human kind; only then will we look at ourselves, transformed into infinite, with the appearance of the matter and no more with the imposture of the artifact and its sedative roots… In several parts of the world, the present has been marked by a growing manifestation of violence, it isn’t but a symptom of a generalized trip towards the recovery of the ghettos regime. Already have some authors exposed the dangers that policies of identity have if they throw themselves into the reverse of the differences. The cheers of already about three decades when a world of respect and generalized opportunities was manifested collapse today in leaps and bounds and, even though there is reluctance in giving credit to apocalyptic projections, which describe an imminent war panorama, it would be worth to stop to think of the present before the siege of reason is overtaken . The discourse of hatred, re-established little by little by the undeniable crisis of the liberal democracy and the economic model that supports it, has had its most evident apparition in several international scenarios. The ascent of Donald Trump in United States, of the LePenism in France; the attempts of coups in Turkey, the violent changes justified because of the rights of democratically elected governments (as in the Brazilian case) or the aggressive politics from figures like Putin in Russia or Maduro in Venezuela, among other cases that are not for free. Even the electoral arrivals of conservative and authority forces in countries such as Mexico or Argentina cannot be unseen as a recession of free lifestyles.
Facing the concatenation of these scenarios, the possible consequences could be seen with controversy, but it is necessary to present them to be conscious about it; keeping the belief that the authority arrivals in the middle of the century of liberties and development are only a bad joke is leading to opening and allowing the development in diverse matters of a panorama with similarities such as the ones that originated World War II is not distant; by saying this, it does not mean that a new world conflict will be presented the same way, nor with the same methods as 77 years ago, nevertheless, in the year 1939, the conditions were not the same as in 1914 and the results, not to mention, are well known. The main goal of this text is to reflect about the causes and consequences like those of a contemporary era and the invitation to resist from our diverse ambits of incidence. Nothing more harmful when we are in front of the hatred speech, than to allow it to advance, even worse, to reply to it. We can´t keep lying to ourselves, the development of this world in terms of integration looks fragile with the current context; we are still denying the recurrent evidence constantly shown. We are racist and expelling societies; veiled or explicitly; whether we want it or not, with an importunate honesty or with delicate hypocrisy. We are still making discourses of the everyday rhetoric; using the simulated colloquial, we declare phrases that once they reach public figures, in the best case scenario, seem undignified, and in many more, indignant, making collectively desired and repressed insights remarkably present. We question ourselves for example, with surprise, the ascension of a xenophobe in United States, without thinking that the possibility that allowed his candidateship was that of a latency of a symptom that momentously
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hid a kind of limited but apparently effective development, however, when replacing its depletion, it generated easy but extremely profound phobias of individualized and racist subjectivity of endless American citizens reemerge. Besides the dynamic policies and the ascension to power exposed in this article, there are also the events derived from terror, and those that allow to see another unquestionable reality: Our empathy facing the tragedy is dressed up in white and disguised as middle-east, which might appear comprehensible, also requires a decisive reading to evidence and allow a profound reconstruction as species. Our selective sensibility is normal only from a weak point of view, that from which we construct our new affective relationships; however the relationship we have as humans should not be an affective matter and nevertheless it is, we justify or banalize death around the discourse of affection. We have walked over a world that makes us think that we don’t have anything in common with a farther one, whether it is because of its distance measured in kilometers, the skin tone, the scent of the perfume or the economic position. Facing all that has been mentioned, the exclusive policies and the widening of the external imaginary enemy are once again located in a place where race and social class play once more an almost natural role from the way it is acquired; Gipsies, Mexicans, Muslims, teachers, Latinamericans, “imperial dogs” and a wide etcetera are the words with which the rival of humanity from diverse sides tries to eliminate or “keep on bay”. The extreme sides from the lefts to the rights, touched by the same phobias have produced veiled totalitarianism that slowly gest and locate collective narratives that legitimize repressions, excessive use of strength and discrimination of people and groups in several parts of the world. The diagnosis of the estate of permanent exception that Walter Benjamin reported almost a century ago, and taken by Giorgio Agamben a couple
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decades ago does not seem too far from being true. Although the analysis of these authors is very close to a European context, today it can be re-read in other parts of the world starting with different conceptual figures that constitute it; invisible concentration camps, abandoned life, legally justified sites and simulated in the best case scenario and outraged in the worst of them, those are only some of the cases that can be inserted in the analytic trajectory of the contemporary. We have conceived evil from our theological-political tradition only with the goal of fighting it; the discussion of the mentioned should not be neither moral, nor hasty nostalgic, because its combination is just the resurface or what paradoxically produces what is meant to be denounced. It is worth to search and revisit new ways of resistance and change; years of civilization are still not sufficient to understand that the human condition and the empathic reflex that it should promote on the chances of the existent ones, the surrender is not an expedition of what we should be part of; there is too much light capable of being developed and shared. It is worth to stop denying in front of the mirror that our glance has not been exclusive, because it promotes an inconvenient hypocrisy when we are on the edge of an unspeakable terror. Life and its transit cannot continue developing by using the negation of its full expansion. The culture, central node of our government over the natural world, requires to be amplified, but also revisited in its fine forms, to avoid abrupt, complaining and tyrannical dominations to be kept alive using progress as a pretext. Lastly, it is fundamental not to forget the importance of the word, which has two main potentials: To be spoken and to be heard; there are times in which it becomes to be necessary to be a listener without stopping being a speaker; let us not stop exploring both possibilities, as in the emancipating silence and its expressive gesture, and moving against indifference, boldly word, dignified and articulating.
Urban Art has no Boundaries Arturo Vieyra Santos
K
yselak (1831) considered the grandfather of modern graffiti, wrote his name along the Austro-Hungarian Imperium in the first part of XIX Century. He was the first one to use the streets as his canvas. In a different way, in countries such as England and the United states, many homeless people used this way of expression through symbols to communicate to each other. This visual culture known as “boxcar� started approximately in 1890 and still exists in our modern times, being each time more detailed and elaborate. The rebel behavior of urban art has been influenced in part by the revolutionary European policies, which often used the stencil or template sheets to communicate their propaganda. The French artist Blek LeRat, pioneer of this technique, declared in his memories that his job was affected by template sheets used by the dictator Benito Mussolini to spread his fascist ideology in Italy. Because of its easy reproduction, the bill-boards started to be widely used during the 60s. It is important to mention that the anonymity of this technique allows his creator to elaborate them in private and to quickly display them in public spaces, which contributed to their growing popularity.
Modern urban art was consolidated during the 1960s and by then, the pieces of the puzzle were almost completely set in their sides; labels stencils, bill-boards and murals already established the tone of what would be one of the biggest artistic revolutions by the end of the XX Century. During two consecutive decades, the stream grew up, following the logical evolution of the art that plays with the identity and the public spaces until it coined, by the mid-90s, the term Street Art. It is still not possible to completely define street art because of its dynamic and evolving nature, and for the characteristic of being unable to delimitate it. This art inspired in the environment with rebel and anti-capitalist shades is a democratic form of public art that is not limited to a gallery and is not easily recollected or collected. Comuniarte AC created in Puebla City, Mexico since 2012, has focused on being an association that generates initiatives in benefit of art and society, linked to artists and social groups, enterprises and institutions compromised with the development of the artistic community of the city. Its president, Artura Vieyra Santos started developing contests of urban art in neighborhoods, small communities
A glance of Mexico across the world
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Philadelphia City, United States, in honor of the 55th anniversary of the Battle of Puebla, culture and tradition of the magic towns in Puebla. Luis Garcia Francisco, Martín Titla Mena, Tomás González Durán, Miguel Cotzomi, Victor Hugo Ruíz Hernández, Ricardo López Sandoval, José Oscar Gárcía de la Rosa, urban and plastic artists, Martha Elena Torres Hernández, business woman and art designer, they will have the mission to gather 180,000 pesos to cover their expenses in the United States, for which they will invite the civil society to sum up to the campaign “Comuniarte has no boundaries”, participating in auctions, murals, selling sculptures and handcrafted items for the cause. We invite you to inform yourself about the project and to join the participation to the Facebook site: Comuniarte AC. Support art and urban expression!
and popular zones, perfect canvas for the development of this kind of art and this way to contact young urban artists that search expression spaces which look forward to erase the conception of vandalism as it has been prejudged by different sectors of society. In general, urban artists are a vulnerable group in our society with incomplete studies, they are in a frequent risk of falling into addictions, they suffer non-desired pregnancies and come from low-resource and dysfunctional families. Comuniarte AC, from its foundations seeks to provide them material, training, management, financing and encouragement to develop their artistic abilities. Under this premise, 35 public spaces have been recovered, among them, bridges, schools, parks and community centers in popular neighborhoods in Puebla. As part of these activities. On the next may 5th 2017, Comuniarte International will invite a group of young emerging artists to paint on a mural in
A lack of Creativity Carlos Alberto Reyes Arroyo
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musical note. Maybe a Do. Maybe a Fa. Perhaps a Sol. Who can say it with accuracy? Not me. Why? Simple ignorance. Maybe it started with a verse, a sonnet or a rhyme. A photo maybe? A trace? A sketch? A draft? A dance? The stroke of a chisel? One way or another, one of them must have started, Who and why? Which was the rebel soul that preferred to stray instead of going on tainting its name in this sorrowful path humans have started? Because, for good or for bad, it is them that fill with light and greatness that complicated human nature, I wasn’t there, but I could bet my life that they got away full of tears, sorrow and disappointment. What a sad image that is: Human kind being abandoned by its arts. They give a cause and a path to those beings without a hope. Those who gladden the hearts and infuse braveness. Creators of smiles and of stares lost in space. Sighs full of profoundness and unexpected shivers. They are gone. They have abandoned us. But who could dare make any objection as an own decision? Really no one in the whole world can judge them. Being in their position, I would probably have done the same. The absurd senseless chaos has obliged it. The only great artwork we have produced at the time was titled “the dead of the human soul”. And that was the way they started to bustle about through this sad world, like a vagabond carrying his home on his back, traveling along unknown countries. They warded off as far as they could from the great majestic cities, avoiding any deep touch with humanity. They went where humans cannot go. Where their fragile bodies do not allow them
to reach. Seas. Deserts. Caves. Jungles. Mountains. Some even ventured to surpass the limits of the sky and reached the space, like little princes and thus visit diverse planets. A great family that took its path in separate ways. No one accompanied anyone. And in the trip no one met anyone. In some cases, loneliness is the best friend. Then the world was left in total obscurity, nobody painted, nobody wrote, nobody created because they got lost, they got lost in an insatiable quest and an uninhabitable home. With no course or objective. Until one day in which they were not able to recognize themselves anymore, they were rediscovered. Gone astray. The site: A bedchamber. Four walls, a door, a closet, an immense bookshelf and a high bed. There, the least used words could be: Normal, common, and simple to understand. Uncanny, rare, extraordinary and totally out of control would be the best expressions to that irrational situation. Everything was creepy and truly marvelous. Outstanding but correct at the same time. In the first place, “The Owner”, a delicate girl, short on age and height, what was most curious about her was her long and magnificent hair. When “Literature” arrived, the girl’s hair was red, and in the blink of an eye, it turned pink. Then “Music” appeared at full volume with its friends rhythm and harmony just when the abundant hair was turning platinum-blonde. After a little while, everything was messy. Little by Little it was turning into another chaos like the one that provoked everything in the beginning. But this one was inclined to creation, not to destruction. It was an explosion that provoked joy and not sorrow. It
Charro: a typical horseman from Mexico. Although women don’t pay well: Aunque mal paguen ellas, a song by Pedro Infante.
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could be said that it was beautiful within its ugliness. There, in that small space, every inch of purity and greatness that humanity has. The Owner, now with her long hair, white as snow, wouldn’t stop smiling in a pure and childish way.
scratches his head and thinks of escaping on his bike. The Owner now with brown tone brings glasses and hands them out before the inconsolable glimpse of Pedro, when he realizes that the tequila is over and there is only water inside them.
Dance made a spectacular entry, taking rhythm by the hand and showing its best movements while it smiled at the geniuses that recreated the majestic swan with its lakes. It had been years since they last met! Blue as sea water was now the shade of our host’s hair, while she admired the gigantic David that the Little Buonarroti and Sculpture, who knows how, managed to take into the room. From the bottom of the room, a young man named Dante approached them to ask if they had not seen a beautiful maiden called Beatriz, with whom he had just managed to come back from a long trip.
Curious scene, Architecture on a tantrum and proud does not dare getting in. It is perfectionist and indecisive. Its body needs the rest, but its mind does not venture to enter that highly needed recess. Its vanity won’t help it, for it is an insult to enter such a simple place. She who helped to create the great temple of the wise Goddess. Could it be lowered to enter that small room? Then it happened, it saw them there… As fast as the wind blew it ran until it jumped to lay on the carpet, as a three year old girl in the middle of two men sharing crayons to draw. On the ground sheets and sheets of paper are scrambled over and over again. Ictinus and Callicrates smile astonished. Who would say it? There is no pride that can stop a moment of amusement with the friends of all time. The Owner, while observing Architecture with her Green hair, and now with pitch black hair, is preparing to take a sit next to her great final guest. Which had a curious hat and a toy speaker in the right hand. Everyone else gather around them sitting next to the one they love the most. William without his Juliette, Cervantes without his Sancho get closet to Literature and lay on her side, she and her loving mother hugs them tenderly. Cuddling on the bed, Amadeus and Music give a piece of blanket to a misunderstood cowboy with round glasses called Woody, who apparently has no idea of how he got there.
Sitting on the floor, forming a circle, twelve share the bread waiting for Leonardo to finish the table and serve the wine, the problem is that a cheerful and impatient charro*1 won’t stop insisting to forget the wine to better serve tequila instead and make a toast “although women don’t pay well”*2. Pedrito, not losing time and with his tequila glass in hand gets close to a lady with a mysterious smile, asking her name, to what “painting” amused responds, the name of the mentioned gal is Gioconda. Closer to the wardrobe, a quartet coming from the port of eternal rain pretends to start a conversation with a man of a droll moustache who has a singular hat in the shape of a mushroom… the surprise they will get when they discover that for hours they have been trying to get words out of a mime. Closing the circle, there are three lovers of poetry trying to make a science man understand a verse: Juana takes the thread of the conversation, while the Baker dad and Neruda the Chilean concede nodding, while poor Albert
On the spot: Auguste next to the light switch and Louis next to his wonderful song wait for the signal. Then everyone remains in silence while Cinema yells: Attention!!!
11 A glance of Mexico across the world
Paradox of
innovation and social-economic development Javier Sánchez Díaz de Rivera
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fter all, the main goal of development in a country, Mexico in our case, is to achieve a shared prosperity, an easy and generalized welfare. The innovation nowadays has become a magical word, luck from an amulet to position an enterprise for opening markets, to be more productive, to differentiate each other. It is true, almost everything is a primal level of innovation, the principal level in the scale of the enterprise. The innovation these days is essential. What matters is to not lose sight of the initial phrase of this article and ask ourselves the way the innovation is a wider level, in the social scale; it can be a factor of shared prosperity. It is important to consider that the innovation in the scale of the enterprise does not necessarily generate an innovation in the social and economic scale of a country. Today, the innovation is used as a powerful adjective for the supposed social and economic development. The same words of productivity, differentiation, technology, even enterprise are considered understood and starting there, we make innovation without questioning the processes that are in the base of these concepts. We think that technology is always positive, or that there is only a way of creating an enterprise or we do not think of the fact that productivity is more associated to unemployment than with the creation of employment. The economic and social development in Mexico, as in the rest of the world, is a dual development. On a hand, very powerful technological innovation with great investments, focused on big enterpri-
ses; on the other hand, a very poor innovation, scarce inversion, in a sea of micro and small enterprises that generate the biggest number of employments, but not well paid an unstable. On a hand, the accumulation of a growing wealth in a few hands, business and enterprises. On the other hand, a growing inequity in most part of the population. This can be affirmed in Mexico as in the United States like Joseph Stiglitz accurately documents it in his book “El Precio de la Desigualdad”. When we talk about innovation, it is important to associate two scales, the one of the enterprise, and the social and economic one in which these enterprises and productive organizations work to analyze what kind of innovation aim to share prosperity and which are blind agents of dual development that generate unemployment and inequity. With the previously mentioned, it is necessary to think that the technological innovation has to go side by side with the economical mechanisms of innovation, from the practices of distribution of wealth, from the models of working organizations and to critically incorporate the cultural and social wealth. In the Institute of Design and Technological Innovation, (IDIT in Spanish), from the Universidad Iberoamericana de Puebla, we try to face these dual development and unilateral, socially-ineffective innovation dilemmas. The main criterion is to associate pertinent technological innovation to the innovation of the enterprise models. Today it is possible to develop very powerful technology, cheaper and easier to learn and manage,
A glance of Mexico across the world
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so that the possibility of doing almost anything is in the hands of many people. This is the model and vision of the Fablabs, series of laboratories of digital production sponsored by the MIT (Massachusetts Institute for Technology). The Falab pretends to get people close and to give enterprises a productive capacity, currently unknown, through design and digital production. 3D printing machines, laser cutters, wood cutting routers, plastic injectors, sublimations, among others, are the fundaments of this possibility. On the other hand, the economical innovation consist on the sponsorship of the creation of enterprises of social economies, with a cooperative behavior, where the work has a priority bigger than the capital, where the processes of decisions are balanced and where those who work inside are members of them. The fusion of both concepts: The Fablab and the
social economy enterprises, have several virtues like getting technology close to small enterprises to give them a wider capacity of development and stability; to increase the capacities of access and technological knowledge of the people; to enable a bigger distribution of wealth generated by the enterprises; to assure the working stability during periods of crisis. This fusion has an interesting potential to create a productive development with a shared prosperity. Of course, developing this idea comprehends a wider range than the one possible in this article. Hopefully these ideas will remain to provoke a common reflection of ideas that face the challenges of our time and overcome this dual and blind development that generates such inequity.
CONVERGER OLÍMPICO
María Fernanda Monroy Martignón Cuando todo calla y mucho queda Los países convergen y sus cuerpos hablan El pasado introspecciona en línea directa al presente, Con un eco los dioses del Olimpo se hacen omniscientes. El terráqueo apunta, al sur de América Olimpia posa Cerca del Amazonas se oye el trote Jinetes marchan en busca del deporte Ayer se quería la Corona de laurel Hoy el oro es de quien lo ve, la meta a veces se nos escapa y muchas veces no se alcanza. El que gana uno para todos y todos para uno Otros van de cero a ninguno, pero ahí hay orgullo. Se pierde o se conquista pero la meta está a la vista, En el podium solo a tres Banderas izan. Mírenlos correr, mírenlos caer Mírenlos poder, mírenlos defender Mírenlos volar, nadar, clavar, encestar Mírenlos gritar y llorar sin cesar La élite con el pueblo en un mundo de juego, ironía con agonía a uno le hace el día. Sangre y sudor en muchos de sus miembros Con un vuelco en entidades con templos, En ellos apremia la vida y la capacidad De su pasión el triunfo la mayor necesidad.
15 A glance of Mexico across the world
Juan Gerson: the tlacuilo of the two worlds Pedro David Gรณmez Sรกnchez
T
oday you can visit the two biggest icons of painting and architecture that are dispersed around the world with more easiness than in previous times. It is important to recognize that technology has presented very plausible solutions about the conversation and exposition of some works that we have near. Finding pieces and works in their natural estate is harder with time; especially because of the continuous fatigue that time and weather can cause over them. To appreciate pieces of art in their original place is another aspect to which we must remit to, in terms of knowledge and admiration of what our huehuehtlatolli ancestors created everywhere. Every still existent artistic vestige, in this case, pictorial, almost intact from its creation is valued by people close to the region. Being conscious of what is preserved here and of the common use it currently has, the paintings of the choir dome from the former convent Franciscano de Tecamachalco, made by the indigenous tlacuio Juan Gerson consolidate him as one of the most important representatives of the novo-hispanic paintings in the zone. We go deep into the chase of cultural and artistic scarcely known places in the region of Puebla, for example, the Tecamachalco Valley zone gives us one of those great works that we can still know in its original place. The former Franciscan convent of Tecamachalco has an impressing amount of artistic elements that present some baroque shades of architecture in Europe, the creation of religious spaces as social centers, and even the use of products, local materials, and tools for the creation of works and structures currently used. It is well known that when the first evangelizing priests arrived to Tenochtitlan, the situation of nearby cultures was splendorous in every area related to arts we know; each of the regions had some represen-
tatives that were trained to tell what this encounter was gestating in every possible way, even as a doctrine. The teaching of techniques, different to those known was an important parameter in this process of engagement, and one of the most recognizable ones was Juan Gerson, a native whose prior name was unknown before the arrival of father Francisco de las Navas, one of the first to make massive baptisms in the zone, an whose information is little known. It is important to mention that he was baptized Juan Gerson because of the ideological influence that the French humanist and philosopher Jean Charlier-Gerson had impacted on the priests, and as a demonstration of respect for the outstanding artistic quality, this natural left in evidence the first acts of being known. There is not a lot of remaining data from this character; it has been a series of filters that unfortunately have left us with no more detail than the life of this tlaculio. Among these rumors and biographical data, but specially the historical conjectures, we have a space in which his artistic legacy gives us an answer of how their contemporary people saw him, the choir dome from the atrium in the former convent is his most remarkable legacy and it nowadays gives the acknowledgement of both art and religion. The most remarkable achievement attributed to this artist is the creation of a series of pictographic paintings that nowadays have an unthinkable value. The activity of the tlaculio was one of the richest during the times prior to the conquest, and even remained that way afterwards, and it remained that way after it to elevate the indoctrination and evangelization. In terms of knowledge, Juan Gerson is one of the most advanced natives in terms of arts and the activity of preservation of the
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popoloca culture, this remains a manifest within the paintings and scenes of the old and new testament that are found in the choir dome of the convent, from which he is presumed to have been the guardian in the last days in his life; such charge could not be designed to any native. In a surface of less than ten square meters and with twenty-eight symmetrically embedded handcrafted pieces, simulating a flower, each piece located in an evangelist position according to the creation, and which are located in the four cardinal points and in the center of the place, the coat of arms of the natives that has the phrase IPAN OMOCHIVIN YEAR 1562 “CREATED ON THIS YEAR” which it is believed to be the year when the construction of the choir dome and the building that is currently the cloister began. The most controversial topic is the use of the materials that this artist acquired for the elaboration of all the paintings and the technique given by the priests in a very stylized way and with such an iconic strength to be accepted by the natives of the region of Tecamachalco that still preserve a percentage of some quality and coloration. To experts and scholars of art, it is amazing to think that even though they are exposed to the lack of mercy of weather, humidity, a considerable amount of quakes, and lately, the abuse using of artificial lights and flash lights from photography cameras, the iconographies remain surviving with no particular care, without alterations that could cause them to fall from the ceiling of the choir dome.
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Juan Gerson used the amate paper “amatl” made from vegetables (the plant of maguey and its fiber through the artisan chore of drying it and the similar preparation of a paper sheet) as canvas, the chemical-vegetable substances employed for the painting and the detail, that vary from metal oxides that back then were commonly used, as mercury and minor blends of diverse metals, as well as the use of cochineal ink, a typical insect of the region notorious for its reddish color. There are
more colors like the blue, that is acquired when several materials that Gerson had, mixed. There is a theory that says that every piece was individually made, but the final decoration was done when the rest of them were already set in the upper part, because of orders given by their priests teacher, and as an own decision because of his beliefs. From the fine traces the representation of biblical scenes of Johannes Gutenberg that the priests gave Gerson, he developed the most faithful and esthetic interpretation registered in a Franciscan convent of the region; they are even presumed to be the only ones of their kind, and in the country. The legacy of this character must be considered as important as that of other contemporary artists, because it broke the most difficult scheme of a historic moment: The implementation of an ideology. The references of this translation of esthetic knowledge were not negative, although it was marked by violence and destruction. The communion of this encounter of races was also beneficial, because today we can enjoy not only the images, but also a time that left us a reason to appreciate the significance of art from our ancestors. We give our thanks to Mr. Roberto Armando Cadena Calvario, in charge of the former Franciscan convent of Tecamachalco and president of INAH in the previously mentioned place, because of his work and conservation of these pieces and to Mrs. Judith Benítez for his graphical collaboration.
What is Intercultural Coaching? Rocio Prado Castillo
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We have heard a lot about Coaching: A technique of companionship to help a person to reach a goal. These techniques have been specialized in specific topics, and one of them is the Intercultural Coaching, which focuses on achieving the effectiveness of a person interculturally speaking. This is, to achieve the goal or accomplish the objective in an efficient way, overcoming cultural differences . According to Cervantes Dictionary: “The interculture is a kind of relationship that is internationally established between cultures, that defends the dialogue and the encounter between them starting from the mutual recognition of their respective values and ways of life”. For María Asunción Aneas Álvarez from the Pedagogy Faculty in the University of Barcelona, Spain, “the intercultural competence will imply the disposition and exercise of a person from a series of knowledge and abilities and behaviors that permit the development of his/her work or function, whatever was the original qualification, it will allow the person to relate and separate the possible challenges and difficulties that could appear because of the cultural interactions”. Under these two perspectives, one could think that the cultural differences can only be experimented with people from other countries, instructing that if there is no interaction with foreign people, the intercultural competence is not necessary. However, are there no different cultures of work between companies? Or between departments of the same companies; is there no interaction with a family that has a different culture when there is
a relationship between couples? Now, considering the term “Culture” as a junction of uses and costumes that obey one or several determinate groups, then quite probably we are day by day interculturally relating one to another with more frequency than we think. That is why the Intercultural Coaching helps people to interact and achieve goals in a harmonic way with the ones they “live” with and observe the world in a different way. The Intercultural Coaching generates an attitude of open-mindedness towards the understanding of values and beliefs of the others, without ceasing being oneself, achieving the necessary acting to be able to communicate and generate actions; it will give us the necessary tools to overcome the intercultural challenges and its transcendence is found in teaching new generations to work in a multicultural society, which will certainly help living in a better world, a peaceful world.
A glance of Mexico across the world
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The universitary symbolic band of Puebla José Antonio Rincón Rincón
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he university symphonic band of Puebla was founded in October 1987, with the initiative of forming a professional choir group composed of graduates and students from the diverse faculties in Puebla City.
During that tour, he visited cities such as Madrid, San Sebastián, Burgos, Bilbao, Gernika, Tolosa and Toledo in Spain, Rome and the Vatican City in Italia, Athens, Olimpia, Corinto and Patras in Greece, among others.
Its founder, Mtro. José Antonio Rincón Rincón, has been its only director.
Some of the contestant members in the tour were: Laura Leal Corona, Gina Maciel, Lídice Lazcarro, Hilda Mejía(+), Gabriela Rodríguez, Laura Miranda, Sara Corona, Verónica Jiménez, Teresa Lezama, Guadalupe Blanco, María Eugenia Fuentes, Salvador Fernández, Roberto Montealegre, Raúl Escalante, Rolando Vera, Octavio Pérez, Miguel Amat, Josaphat Carpinteyro, Mario Martínez, Fernando Camacho, León Felipe Martínez and Jorge Pérez.
It has a very variated repertoire, including Symphonic-choral works, contemporary plays of the world, and of course, a wide repertoire of Mexican folkloric music. There have been several national and international tours. And it is precisely the Athens International Choir Contest 1992 where the first place in Folklore, from among 32 participant nations was acquired.
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