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| My greatgrandmothers and me. |
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| Mis bisabuelas y yo... |
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The many pieces of this museum can never tell the story in the
same way, nor can anyone predict the messages they will transmit and inspire, at every turn, to those who to see it.
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| Hats. |
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| Los sombreros... |
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| Fence, Border, Borderlands. |
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| Muro, límites, fronteras... |
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My grandmother grew up in a house where
newspapers were always hidden under the wooden floor boards and behind the shelves as if weapons or other dangerous objects.
The press hidden in the basement became an all too familiar image.
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The only collection, of which I can symbolically take ownership, evokes
those objects I cherished, but for various reasons I ended up either selling or giving away. It is a collection of memories.
I liked using a box to let those objects speak, since it is in boxes and
drawers that we usually keep and preserve our memories. I based the construction of my museum in a box around the
mobility of its pieces, and the ability to have them spread, as I tell my stories through miniature masks made out of paper
that resemble the actual masks I once collected; or through the miniature covers of books, mostly of Mexico, that bring up
the memory of the many books I once owned and donated to the Normal Superior de Maestros de Zacatecas (the Education Branch
of the University in the town where I used to live).
As theme for my museum in a box I chose the coming of the
Centennial and the Bicentennial of the Mexican Revolution and the War of Independence (1810/1910, respectively); only contrary
to what the government is trying to portray through the many glitzy national celebrations containing mostly positive images
extracted to an aged revolution, I present some of the memories that forever challenged the official views, showing how a
social movement diverted from its own premises, into an order perhaps more dictatorial, oppressive and corrupt than the one
it overthrew.
In my museum in a box I included political caricatures, newspapers, books, masks,
and skeletons, intermixed with miniature crafted furniture. A picture of the wall dividing Mexico and the US today symbolizes
the turmoil that still shakes two neighboring countries –Mexico and the US- marked by contrast. On my wall I reproduced
the graffiti of the revolution, today sentences and slogans revealing more the worn out promises, and the claims never met:
Literacy, fair distribution of wealth, fair distribution of land, education for all, equal rights, human rights, etc…
Being a writer, journalist, publisher,
or engraver still entails today risking your life, as recently seen with the many journalists dead and the violence against
painters in Chiapas, or Oaxaca. I imagine the times of my great grand father’s founding of the newspaper, La Aurora
Democrática similar to current ones in which opposing the government is a deadly affair. My grandmother grew up
in a house where newspapers were always hidden under the wooden floor boards and behind the shelves as if weapons or other
dangerous objects. The press hidden in the basement became an all too familiar image. Journalists like my great grand father
looked up to Regeneración and El Hijo del Ahuizote, the most renowned revolutionary newspapers. The
publishers of those newspapers had to cross the border to escape death. Some died in US streets and prisons. As Mexico’s
dictator, Porfirio Díaz, made his power stretch even across the border Journalist Ricardo Flores Magón died
in a prison in Leavenworth, Kansas.
Many find similarities between Día de los muertos (a celebration
I represent through public displays, yearly) and the revolution. The comparison is not far fetched. Mexican families link
their lives to two major, and deadly historic events, the war of Independence and the Revolution of 1910. These two social
uprisings involve at least seven generations.
Finally,
local tradition and folk art ceased to be censored and marginal thanks to the inquisitiveness of an intellectual class that
attempted to redefine Mexican identity at the turn both of the XIX and of the XX Centuries. Attention turned then to the art
rooted in Mexican indigenous cultures, Mexican diversity, and Mexican folk expressions. So Día de los muertos takes
part in that new narrative of nation, along with corridos, novels, and a culture of crafts that includes many artifacts portraying
that new reality and way of life clearly in contrast with a society previously dazzled by European customs and fashions.
My museum in a box consists of a wooden box containing seven other boxes and one sheet of wood. It all fits perfectly
in creating compartments that are contained in a box measuring 14 by 10.4 and with a height of 10.4.The concept of a museum contained in a box, taken from Marcel Duchamp’s boîte
en valise, was one of many fabulous assignments to turn in for my Museum Studies Class. I enjoyed working with the portable
nature of my box, and loved how its pieces can never tell the same story more than once, and they cannot predict the messages
they will transmit and inspire at every turn to those who see it.
The art piece entitled "Museum in a box" was exhibited in the
Spring of 2009 at the San Diego Mesa College Gallery. One of two pieces selected from my Museum Studies class to take part
at the Student Art Show that year. The museum in a box project is inspired by Marcel Duchamp's Boîte-en-Valise. I exhibited my
piece using the pseudonym María Cienfuegos.
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