The 20th Mexico Now Festival closed with a multimedia project about the border

New York and Washington. The five days of the Mexico Now Festival – one of the main efforts in the United States to present and promote contemporary Mexican culture – culminated last Sunday with the presentation of a multimedia project about the border and a dialogue between curators and promoters of some of the main cultural institutions in New York focused on building artistic bridges between Mexico and the United States in the context of the recent presidential elections.

Echoes of the border is a journey along the border strip on the US side that through texts, recorded voices, historical archive material and live narratives, image and sound seeks to offer a journey to an area full of stories of indigenous people, immigrants, miners, fences and walls, atomic bombs and missiles, and insistence on memory.

Created by the writer Valeria Luiselli, the composer Leonardo Heilblum and the multimedia artist Ricardo Giraldo, over the course of about five years, the final project will be a 24-hour trip along the border strip (including about 160 kilometers within the line).

They explain that in part it is the story of those who are missingof the systemic and ancestral violence of that area, including the exploitation and destruction of lands due to mining, poor water management, agroindustry and militarization – it includes areas where the atomic bomb was first tested, as well as like thousands of missiles of all kinds.

“I don’t know what to say, I don’t know what to say…and where we are now.” Luiselli explained after the presentation of a fragment of the project that the idea It is not explaining the borderbut to feel it, listen to it.

The text includes children’s laments, questions and explanations, anger in stories of violence against women, and more questions, while offering glimpses of tragedy and resistance.

In a dialogue between curators and cultural promoters, the issue of cultural diplomacyabout which everyone agreed that it is now more urgent after the US presidential election. Several spoke of their efforts to open the panorama of Mexican culture in New York.

Bringing the past to the present and articulating the future

Claudia Norman, founder and director of Mexico Now, and cultural curator-promoter with more than 20 years of experience in New York, commented that by presenting Mexican culture in other places, we have to ask who we are.

The answer is complex and multicultural, since it must be taken into account, among other issues, the 68 indigenous languages ​​spoken today, some of which, such as Nahuatl, are spoken even in New York; also ask What is the pulse of today and in what context is it expressed?.

He added: It is something we are trying to do, open that window to current culture and see Mexican culture as an integral part of a global expression and, therefore, Whoever you are, you will find a connection with that culture. He concluded: “we want to build those bridges… bring the past to the present and preserve a better future.”

Laura Filloy, curator of ancient arts of the Americas at the Metropolitan Museum (Met), spoke of looking for how to make the ancient present today. He emphasized that it is necessary to understand that they are not ancient cultures, but that they are alive today in their current indigenous heirs: some 11 million speak Mayan, even in New York, he indicated. As an example of his work, he pointed out that the exhibition of the pre-Hispanic Mayan world at the Met was accompanied by a presentation by Pat Boy, a rapper in that language, who works with young people from that original group near Chetumal, in Mexico.

Another curator, Paloma Estévez, director of Artistic Programming at Lincoln Center, spoke about how to break the confinement of public and artists, and how to undo the borders of New York and its public and between countries.

In the previous days, the festival offered a concert by the Acardenchado Choir, a selection of short films from the Morelia Film Festival and a presentation of Santiago Arau’s photography book.

On a rainy day as a prologue to the long winter that is approaching this city, suddenly the Sun and the Moon came out, and the heat of the son jarocho in a New York fandango just on the Day of Saint Cecilia, patron saint of musicians.

The night that invited everyone to tap their feet, musicians dedicated to the son in this region summoned the dance and the verses to this New York port.

The Mexico Now Festival thus celebrated its 20th anniversary. For more information and festival programs in the past 20 editions, you can visit the site https://mexiconowfestival.org/