Abstract

In Weaving Mestiza Geographies, I use Mexican vernacular textile traditions as the foundation for a self-study focused on my cultural identity. This project departs from my creative pratice and asks: In what ways may the aesthetics of Mexican vernacular textile traditions influence my art making and my teaching as a visual artist trained within Western educational contexts? At a theoretical level, I draw on aspects of feminist epistemologies and geographies, and Mexican history as well as postcolonial theory. I work with a/r/tography, a research methodology that weaves the practices of the artist/researcher/teacher together through a complementary dialogue between image (art) and text (writing). Based on the idea of allegory as a practice that uses symbols to reveal hidden meanings, combining visual and text-based symbols allows me to develop a decolonizing praxis consisting of (un)hiding the Indigenous legacies that form my mestiza (or mixed) identity.
Weaving Mestiza Geographies also addresses issues that relate to contemporary craft theory and practice. I approach the craft object as an embodiment of local, communal, familial, and cultural histories as well as of personal memories. In other words, vernacular textiles become gateways for me to review my relationship to people and places in Central México. In the studio, I reflect on the implications of merging practices of the handmade (weaving, stitching, collaging, assembling) with digital media (photography, digital imaging, printing, and stop motion animation). The knowledge gained when fusing these two ways of working supports the design of three pedagogical strategies (life crafting, digital-craft, and subversive cartography); these are conceived as third spaces in which groups that may have experienced some form of marginalization can access educational experiences that are reflective of their cultural backgrounds and personal histories. Future paths of inquiry will involve participatory art and a/r/tographic action research methodologies with applications in community art and social research that address the identity and body politics framing textile making and other craft practices within the contemporary global economy.