- MUAC

For this exhibition, five of the most active members of Colectivo Cherani have been commissioned by the MUAC to produce a piece that explores the adventure their community has embarked upon from a variety of perspectives, articulated as a mosaic of images and allegories.

The uprising in the Purépecha community, symbolized by the seizure and burning of the loggers’ trucks, gave rise to an exemplary experiment in autonomy and self-government. Cherán has defied pressure from a variety of administrations and political parties by collectively managing public resources and subjecting government decisions to a High Council and neighborhood authorities. A group of creators from different generations have taken on the challenge of accompanying this project of dignity and survival through a multidimensional artistic process.

From their base at the Cherán Cultural Center, they have worked under the name Colectivo Cherani, together producing pieces that are directly connected to autonomous political and social life. They have taken on some of the most complex artistic challenges: interweaving shared experiences into personal work, renegotiating the relationships between different modes of tradition and the contemporary and reinventing identity through poetic freedom.

 

 - MUAC

Uinapikua is a Purépecha term that means strength, understood as a perpetual creative energy. For this commission from the MUAC, Colectivo Cherani has put together an assemblage of 75 panels. The ensemble itself is a reflection of the complex relationship between individuality and collectivity found in their practice. The vectors that these images seek to articulate include translation between languages and cultures, challenges to the political binaries constructed by Mexico’s party system, the ambition of weaving artworks with a different sense of temporality, the relationship between femininity and spirituality and an invitation to provide space for Purépecha thought.
 
In its extreme refinement and layers of meaning, this piece questions the stereotypes that official culture has attributed to productions by the Indigenous peoples from our region of the globe, inviting us to instead practice a true cosmopolitanism.

 

 - MUAC

Artist: Colectivo Cherani

Curator: Cuauhtémoc Medina