Mauricio Cervantes
Soil and Seeds Containers Oaxaca, Mexico, 2015
Mauricio Cervantes es miembro del Sistema Nacional de Creadores de Arte del FONCA CONACULTA Proyecto apoyado por el Fondo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes
Offering of native flowers seeds harvested in the Etla Valley, Oaxaca
Soil and Seeds Containers Art Work Description “Where there is earth there is a hive… where there is a hive there is fertility.” (Trocortesian Codex, Mayan Culture).
The work presented on the dossier is one of the nine modules that comprise the Soils and Seeds Containers.
The metallic canisters that seem like urns, keep a colored soil collection of different places of the Sierra Mixteca in the state of Oaxaca. The single soil recollection, conducted by bioconstructor and architect Maribel González Apodaca describes the first lines of the narrative, where the recognition of the place and a recount of diverse processes and building techniques of houses, silos and sowing terrace are made. The flowers with seed come from different regions of the state of Oaxaca. Plants of medicinal use that are also providers of nectar, pollen, oils and resins for pollinators like the “meliponas”, native bees and also the European bees that have been “seeded” since the 17th century in our continent. The flower selection was made under the naturopath guidance Dana Kraft and the medicinal plant expert Dora María Cuevas.
The third shelf of the containers is occupied by different wax sculptures where you can find remains of organic vegetal and bee material. These pieces, like sculpturesque compost, recreate the meaning that the Mayans found in the fact of burying dead bees to regenerate the earth, to regenerate fertility and life. The wax is from melliferous bees (European) from the Calakmul zone of Quinta Roo and from meliponas bees from the North Mountain Range of Puebla. The environmental services of all the bee species, either European or Native are essential for the biodiversity activation which is why the sculpture waxes are from both families. By including the hive products of different bee species a sense of inclusion and transculturation is expressed, that extends my main objective as creator –to develop artistic strategies that work as echelons or hinges that link the activity of a variety of knowledge fields around the basic axis: education, environment and community. Including bio-constructors, healers, naturopaths, beekeepers and apiarists on the project corresponds to the desire of expressing through the artist work that you can educate, sow and build a community, with environmental friendly processes.
About the wax and the American Continent Native bees: the Melipona Bees The honey bee producers of the Mayan Cultures and other Mesoamerican villages were the “Meliponini”, the so called meliponas or bees without a sting. The melliferous bees (Apis mellifera) that are actually found in America were imported from Europe. The wax of different native bee species was the Yucatan Peninsula’s main product with which tribute was paid, in thousands of annual tons to the Spanish Crown during the viceroyalty. In the Mayan codex that survived the destruction of the conquest the theme of the bees is abundant. Particularly, the Trocortesian Codex contains and extensive melipona-culture treaty, in a very strict technical sense, which was symbolic and cultural. “The symbol of CABAN used to designate honey is also use to say “There is land” or to designate The World of the Occult. In the Indigenous America, the bee was always associated with the earth and the obscure powers that emanate from it. The Yucatan Mayas had a term, “Cab” that designated at the same time earth and bee. “Cabinal” was the Goddess of Earth and Fertility, she also had the role of being the hive protector. The bee is born or comes from the earth inside and it should return to earth when it dies. For the Mayans the bees were fertility makers, therefore all the dead bees should be buried so the dead bee in the death world shapes life from dead things. This is why the apiarists buried and hide the bee corps under stones.” (J.P. Cappas e Sousa, 1998). In the last lustrums the apiculture is being reevaluated and spread in many corners of the austral world, inhabited by tens of thousands of bee species without sting. In the continent the activity is particularly in Brazil and Mexico.
The most active centers in Mexico for the propagation of the apiculture use are found in Quintana Roo, Yucatan, in Cuetzalan in the Mountain Range of Puebla, and in Teocelo near Jalapa, Veracruz.
Artistic work purpose In the sculpturesque objects and installations a narrative is conceived that becomes timelessness, and can be located outside specific geographic regions. When I choose themes and materials for my work, I review first my closest surroundings: local traditions of the land I live, like the different corners of the Biological Mesoamerican Corridor where I mosey, from the center of the country highland and its Mexica or Nahuatl heritage, passing through the Zapotec and Mixtec lineage of the Oaxacan cultures to the Mayan world expressions of the Yucatan Peninsula. However, by not falling into reductionist regionalisms, you can trace in my work the similarity with motives and practices that we have with the original people, with the scientists and environmentalist of other geographies. The narrative part of displacements for the object and material recollection that registers like a blog, a reflection and investigation process, that is shaped in poetic actions that emulate or recreate animistic practices, and that define center postures in defense of the environment and the planet treasures and our civilizations: earth, water and seeds. The languages and other cultural expressions.
Beehive and Jaguar
Honey Collector
Photosynthesis
The Tlacuilo House
The flowers of Mictlan
Model of the Beehive Garden
Nopal and the Color Spectrum
Copper Coin Offering
Aromatic Flower Offering
Some of the flowers harvested for the project
Credits
To the plants, the bees and the soils
Special thanks to: Galería Distrito14 Shaped in Mexico http://www.shapedinmexico.com/ Olga Margarita Dávila: Chief Curator of Shaped in Mexico Maribel González and Vincent Aba, who collected the colorful soils of the Mixtecan Sierra in Oaxaca. Dana Kraft and Dora María Cuevas, who supported the project with their expertise in plants. Paola Pinelo and the staff of Agadir Granero—my art studio— Alejandra Ruiz, Emmanuel Santos and Silvia Rivera. Javier Hernández Pinacho, the talented welder that´s been working in the Agadir Granero projects for 7 seven years. Cooperativa Tosepan, from the Community of Cuetzalan, Puebla: thanks to them it´s possible to buy wax of native bees (Scaptotrigona mexicana) in Mexico. Calakmiel, the honey enterprise from the state of Campeche in the Peninsula of Yucatan: they donated the wax of European bees (Apis mellifera).
To the network of Melipona Bees in Mexico and the organizations of Melipona-culture and apiculture I am working with, and getting most of my knowledge on beekeeping: Melipona Maya Inana, AC: Escuela de Meliponicultura Cooperativa Tosepan La Calera: Fábrica de acciones sustentables
Catalogue Credits:
Photograph: Mauricio Cervantes, Eva Alicia Lépiz Translation: Edna Zambrano
http://www.meliponamaya.org/ https://www.facebook.com/inanaac/posts/773302729359663 http://www.tosepan.com/ http://www.lacalera.org/
www.mauriciocervantes.wordpress.com Â