The Oracle of the Coba Nymphs by Mariana Rivera

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The Oracle of the Coba Nymphs Mauricio Cervantes

The Oracle of the Coba Nymphs

Remembering Gandalf Gavan (1975 - 2014)

Gandalf used to say that magicians and artists are very similar ... all I know is that the engine that drives them both is LOVE.

The Oracle of the Coba Nymphs Mauricio Cervantes

The Oracle of the Coba Nymphs© Mauricio Cervantes

Text

Production & Logistics

Mauricio Cervantes

Matria Jardín Arterapéutico

Editorial Design

Curator

Mariana Rivera Photography

Mauricio Cervantes ( p. 7, 8, 26, 29, 31, 33, 35 y 37) Ricardo Audiffred (p. 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 27, 28 y 30) Mariana Rivera (p. 9, 15, 17 y 19) Daniel Molina ( p.12) Ulises Vásquez (p.11) Translation

Laurie Thompson The photographs of The Oracle of the Coba Nymphs were taken in Agadir Limonero, Oaxaca, Mexico. 2014

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Hilary Simon Museography in London Beth West Blown glass urn Christian Thornton / Studio Xaquixe Rebozo Ulises Vásquez Segura / Casa Mini Mahue Rufina Mérida Production Assistant Mariana Rivera

Fashion and Textile Museum 6 June - August 30, 2014 London, UK. The oracle of the nymphs of Coba is a commissioned installation for the exhibition MADE IN MEXICO. This is the first of a series of pieces involving organic honey and wax producers in Campeche, Quintana Roo and Oaxaca, cocoa producers in Tabasco and Yucatan, Mexico State weavers and projects like Studio Xaquixe of Oaxaca which focuses on the development of technologies for self-sustainable energy. Â Pollination by bees is essential to the preservation of the planetÂ´s flora.

The Oracle of the Coba Nymphs

The Oracle of the Nymphs Mauricio Cervantes. Instalación. Iron bed, chairs, sink and bath tub with water lily, 2013. Matria Jardín Arterapéutico. Oaxaca, Oaxaca. México. 8

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The Oracle of the Coba Nymphs Coba, an ancient Mayan city built near a lagoon, was considered to be the Bee Capital. Water lilies currently grow around the pond. In the first version of The Oracle of Nymphs in Matria--an outdoor art therapy garden space in Oaxaca—there was an iron bed frame, installed with a bathtub which held goldfish and a white water lily. Among the ancient Mayan priests of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, it was customary to ingest white water lilies as a means of communicating with the beings of the underworld. The symbolism of this relationship with the beings of the underworld will remain intact in the London installation through the use of the cocoa plant and its elements. Cocoa also holds symbolic meaning related to the afterlife, as will be explained in more depth below. The art pieces that make up the series The Oracle of the Coba Nymphs each contain references to funerary offerings. In contemplating the work, the mind wanders, for example, to the image of death by water – the preferred form of suicide practiced by women of other ages. Also evoked, inevitably, is the image of Ophelia drowning in the unforgettable oil painting of Raphaelite John Everett Millais. At the same time, the meaning of funeral references in this work does not consider or suggest death as the final state of things. Rather, the meaning it closer to the mystical sense of transmutation as in the art of alchemy. It refers to the extreme case in which the characters from a variety of mythological traditions descend to the underworld in order to return renewed, such as Kore-Persephone or other mythical heroes and deities such as Osiris, the Egyptian, Orfeo, Heracles and Odysseus among the Greeks, or the divine twins of the Popol Vuh reigning highest in Maya mythology.

Elements of the Installation There will be a bath tub filled with cocoa cobs floating on the surface of the beeswax. Projected onto the wax covering, are the diamond-shaped shadows of a grid or mesh produced by the box springs of an iron bed overlying the tub. Shadows cast by two sources of light create the appearance similar to the hexagonal honeycomb of a beehive. Beside the bed are two chairs that could be occupied by a pair of nymphs that at one time conversed beside the small pond of water lilies at the Matria Therapeutic-Art Garden, in Oaxaca, or next to the Coba lagoon in present day Yucatan Peninsula,Mexico. When placing the elements of the installation at the Museum of London, an iron sink will be recessed into the wall. The basin contains a glass urn encasing another quantity of cocoa beans and is sealed with a glass stopper covered in beeswax. Over the bed, its sides and headboard, is a 30-foot “rebozo (shawl) with the scent of mourning” from Tenancingo del Valle, Mexico State. The Oracle of the Coba Nymphs

The Meaning of the Installationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Symbols: Cocoa, Bees and the Mourning Rebozo Cocoa is one of the four sacred trees, or Bacabes, which appear on the map of the Mayan cosmogony in each of the cardinal directions. Cocoa is placed in the South, also known as the location of the underworld.

In the Mayan world, the cocoa tree is related to blood, theocratic power, ancestors, rebirth, women and the underworld. Some of these themes have been already been explored and treated in my pieces with tubs, and objects and sculptures in Matria, as well as in my paintings and mosaics produced in recent years. When I discovered a drawing of a glyph of the mother of the Mayan Emperor Pakal rising from a cocoa tree, I was fascinated. The shape of the cocoa seed is similar to that of the heart, both containers and generators of blood. This provides meaning to the symbolism of the grain of this sacred tree which continues imbuing life into the deceased in pre-Columbian tombs. Cocoa is connected in such a way with blood that it was used in burials, symbolizing the vital fluid that nourished the deceased on his journey into the afterlife. In other ceremonial rituals, particularly in weddings of the ruling classes, a single goblet with the names of both families inscribed was used for the newlyweds to drink cocoa, symbolizing the merger of the blood in a single lineage. The Jaguar is the patron deity of the cocoa tree which is associated with other animals which serve as food for the great feline, such as spider and howler monkeys, both of which also served as agents of seed dispersal for the tree before it was domesticated. Anecdotally, apart from the information regarding the pieces of the The Oracle of the Nymphs of Coba, during the last week I have been in three archaeological sites in the Mayan peninsula where on my walks I have been accompanied by spider monkeys and even once with the chatter of a howler monkey. I also had the opportunity to visit a cave just after dusk when millions (not an exaggerated figure) of bats came out in great swirls. This experience with the bats was an omen for me, allowing me to understand I will be well accompanied on my experience with the sculptures and installations using wax and honeyâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;the products of one of the most active pollenizers in nature: bees.

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bees

Regarding , my inclination to utilize the wax of this insect can be reduced into a few basic concepts found in Mayan symbolism. The use of a wax layer covering the container of cocoa is associated the following: The Mayan symbol used to designate Caban honey is also used to signify “there is land” or to designate the World of the unseen. In one of the three Mayan codices that survived burning by the sixteenth century missionaries there is the depiction of a Great beehive which represents the interior the earth, the realm of the occult, the domain of the Jaguars—in other words, a magical place for the Mayans. For these people, bees are fertility makers, so the burial of dead bees is necessary to generate new life. Today, it is well known that hundreds of species of bees are disappearing around the world. The interest in creating artistic pieces with beeswax is to draw attention to the labors of love being undertaken by entire communities in places like the Yucatan and Oaxaca to preserve the vital environmental services of bees so as to allow them to continue their ancient work of pollinizing; efforts are made by many to control the overconsumption of the bees’ products and to protect the pristine conditions and ecosystems in places such as the biosphere reserve of Calakmul in the Mayan peninsula which is, after the Amazon, the continent’s largest tropical expanse.

rebozo

The mourning symbolizing the perfumed shroud used to accompany the dead on their journey to the other world. In pre-Hispanic burials, and still today in different corners of Oaxaca, the scent of chocolate or even cocoa is used to accompany the descent of the dead to the underworld. To prepare the aroma for the Tenancingo mourning rebozo, an infusion is made of huizache flowers, a Mexican acacia (presumably that from which was obtained the black ink used in prehispanic codices). In the cosmogony of central Mexico the huizache was incarnated by the goddess Xochiquétzal who was married to Tlaloc, god of the aquatic paradise. Xochiquétzal welcomed, by way of the water, the dead --who carry their eternally green branches and sing or recite beautiful messages in gratitude for their acceptance into the aquatic paradise. The huizache is mixed into the infusion giving its particular aroma to the funeral rebozo. Other plants and flowers used are calla lilies, tarragon, sage, clove, rose petal, apple mint, anise star and cinnamon. Many of these plants were used in both life and death rituals to prepare ceremonial The Oracle of the Coba Nymphs 11

infusions in both prehispanic and colonial times. Perhaps not coincidentally, many of them also provide nectar for bees foraging around the center of the country. The length of the mourning rebozo that will be used in the London installation is nine meters, thereby alluding to the nine levels of Xibalba or the Mayan underworld. My relationship with plants and animals makes me think of different deities with whom I have associated my art objects in recent years. Besides Kore or Demeter, there are increasing visitations or callings to me regarding my workâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;be it as a collector of metaphors, as hagiographer or simply as a devout worshiper of their temples. I have been inspired and visited in the past by deities from various pantheons: Cibeles, Lakshmi, Spes, and the Roman version of Elpis who was worshiped with floral tributes in the vegetable market. Could it now be that I am being visited by the Mayan goddesses Sac Chel (The Great Grandmother) or Xunan Cab (The Bee Women)? Wrapped in the mystery of the night tide off the coast of Tulum. February 2014

Mauricio Cervantes

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