Gotta guard all that “stuff” from the bad guys. (American culture has taught them well)
On Saturday, May 8th, 2010, we woke up early and hopped on a “chicken bus” heading into Guatemala City. This was the last day of the Bienal de Arte Paiz festival, so we decided to make the day of it, see as much of the closing exhibit as we could and enjoy the city I have become so infatuated with.
Flirting with Guatemala City has it’s rules and being safe is one consideration. The capital has one of the highest murder rates in all of Central America. Yes, of course all the conventions of common sense must be applied , but I feel one of the greatest lessons I can teach Miro is to be fearless and always have faith in our safety. This is the very attitude which attracts more of the same, after all. Balance this confidence with common sense and not buying into the typical fear based beliefs has become one of our greatest lessons on this amazing journey.
Friends from the city have blessed us with advice, sharing a few simple ways to enjoy the non-tourist oriented city: Don’t ride the urban buses, don’t walk in certain neighborhoods (zones) or carry valuables and try to stay out of white cabs, which are notorious for robberies. Not too difficult to follow and we’ve never had any problems. When we do head into the city, we usually get off the bus from Antigua at one of the many malls, relatively safe locals, and depending on our purpose for our trip we continue to our final destination from there.
So on Saturday, we got off at one of the city’s newish shopping hot spots, a modern, upscale and proud mall called Miraflores. Around a half dozen or so malls exist in Guate and they seem to be an important social hub for both tourists and locals alike. They are bright, secure and superficially pleasing, and I suppose due to to the lack of many safe public spaces within the city, there just aren’t many other alternatives. (The case of the accidental consumerist, perhaps?)
Entering Miraflores, we were immediately transported into shopping-town-USA involving the usual (upscale) suspects: Guess, Tommy Hilfiger, Abacrombie & Fitch, Ralph Lauren for Kids and their scrubbed window displays. Miraflores was constructed on top of an ancient Mayan ruins called Kamimaljuyu, interestingly enough. This explains the malls’ modest museum dedicated to the Pre-Columbian site of Kamimaljuyu, in addition to the upscale shopping, American dining establishments , a multi-screen cineplex and a Ferris wheel. Although we didn’t visit the museum, I did find this link and admittedly, my interest has peaked. However, I am struck with the profound contradiction within the symbolism itself. Miraflores is a monument to consumer culture build over the ruins of an ancient culture in part destroyed through over-consumption.
Irony.
Our Saturday seemed to echo with irony as the concept of consumerism and capitalism reappeared as a theme in both the city and the artworks we saw.
Enjoy my narrative in the form of a “photo-essay”. Some of the images are images of the actual art works from the how and others are images of the city of Guatemala. Please enjoy and feel free to leave your comments!
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Wanna buy a movie? They are cheap here. You can own a Hollywood blockbuster movie for around 10Q (about $1.25) Now that’s a wrap!
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I love this shot of the street vendors. The little girl has the “gap” shirt on, and the man has a “guess” shirt on and no one looks terribly happy.
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Taken through the glass of a barber shop. The men inside were all watching the soccer match on a tv.
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Loved these photographs of women of all ages wearing the same clothing. I only captured 2 of the images here.
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These are images of a photographic series that features the “New Guatemala”. Images of track homes, power toys, maids, shopping, and security. (Kind of like the US)
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They formed a hide out in the jungle near the border of Guatemala and Mexico and hid out from the army.
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Documentation of a group who were wanted by the government as political dissidents or “communists” in 1984.
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One of my favorite pieces; In Peru, a Mexican & a Belgium artist organized 500 people to collectively shift a sand dune by a few inches. The project required vision & commitment and the video was an amazing documentation.
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In Guatemala, there are many ongoing protests about land ownership, government interference and eminent domain, mostly among the poor and indigenous. This piece showed birth certificates, rather “birth right’s” in the form of houses.
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Conceptual piece. The artist posted an ad in a national newspaper seeking religious preachers. The messages & interviews were recorded & played back through the megaphone. The florescent bulb cross was very bright, it was unbearable to view.This piece was obtrusive but made a point.
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Ever wondered where to buy your personal religious effigies? We found the store in Guatemala City. Religious capitalism.
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Guate street political art. You can’t have a happy happy and flourishing society if there is poverty and crime.
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This building fortress was explained to us as being one of the many headquarters of the corrupt Guatemalan police (past and present). Many people were rumored to have “dissappeared” in the building and many US government officials were a part of the “goings ons”. Many years ago, a mass grave was uncovered on the grounds as a scandal irrupted.
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This is a still from a video documentation of a piece by conceptual artist Regina Jose Galindo. She stood naked in a gallery on a pedestal while over a hundred blind men and women came into the gallery and were invited to explore the art. The video was hilarious watching the men and women poke, prod and touch the artist as she stood there being the art.
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One person’s reation to the vandalism.. it was as if she was talking about a person who had been hurt.
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There is a small village somewhere in Guatemala whose church continually has the religious figures vandalized.
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Powerful clip. A man films a woman on the street holding a child, then he shockingly grabs the child
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These are still from an interesting video piece called “iconographic”. The images were pretty powerful.
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Religious iconography, the eyes were scratched out but they seem to have found their way to the tray in his hand.
![Wanna come up to see my sketches sometime? [VIDEO]](https://www.raisingmiro.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Screen-Shot-2012-09-23-at-3.47.41-PM.png)
