Panteón General

MFA Thesis Exhibition by Lesha Maria Rodriguez

Exhibit Dates: April 11 - 15, 2011
Reception: April 14, 2011, 7 - 9pm
UCSD Campus, Visual Arts Facility Gallery
Gallery Hours: Mon - Fri, 1 - 5pm

Oaxaca, Mexico is located in the southern part of Mexico, bordering the states of Guerrero to the west and Chiapas to the east. It is the home of the Mixtec, one of sixteen officially recognized indigenous cultures in the area. The first trip to Oaxaca taken by the artist, Lesha Maria Rodriguez was in response to the teacher's strike, a conflict that lasted more than seven months and resulted in at least seventeen deaths. Documenting the strike, including political graffiti, rallies, and riots, her interest in the area grew into a meaningful relationship, including a Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship during the Summer of 2010 to learn the Mixtec language. During her multiple trips to the region, she documented farmers, practitioners of traditional arts and crafts, and specific rituals of the Mixtec peoples, such as the Guelaguetza. Paying special attention to the nature of cultural colonialism, tourism, and transcultural development, Rodriguez observed and documented the tradition of harvesting raw materials from insects, plants, and other minerals in the area, applied to textiles, pottery, and other crafts. Furthermore the Guelaguetza that she also documented was a Pre-Columbian ceremony of Xilonen that became adapted to a Catholic tradition, in honor of the Virgin del Carmen. It is from this oeuvre that the thematic selection of the Panteón General became the subject of her MFA thesis show.

Cross-referencing the intense process of traditional Mixtec arts, the artist examined her own art form. This introspection resulted in a series of experimentational film processes, one of which is featured in this show. Using a populist photographic device of Holga plastic cameras and expired black and white film, the artist took a series of pictures in a cemetery, the Panteón General. It is one of the oldest cemeteries in Oaxaca, where multiple generations of families are buried. A process of multiple exposures optimizes the blurring of the trees and architectural components in the cemetery. Using a 35 mm film in a medium-format camera exposes the sprockets and other information that is deleted in normative film processing. Deliberately moving away from the instant results of the digital Single-Lens Reflex (SLR) camera and embracing the unpredictability of the process and outcome, she optimizes the uncertainty, from the taking of the picture to the processing of the film. The imperceptible and undiscerning presence of the cemetery is further manipulated through the creation of an all encompassing environment. Light emanating through the panoramic photographs create an atmosphere that is accentuated by the sculptural components of the installation.

Lesha Maria Rodriguez is a M.F.A. Candidate at the University of California, San Diego. She has a B.A. in Art History from the University of California, Santa Cruz, where she wrote a senior thesis on the ideology of aesthetics. She is engaged in the politics of Mexico, particularly issues surrounding the Oaxacan struggles. Recent exhibitions include the Oceanside Museum and Lui Velazquez Gallery.

For more information email leesha11@yahoo.com