Xook k'iin

Curatorial text

The exhibition Xook k'iin. Caminar el tiempo (Xook k'iin. Walking with time) explores practices, knowledges and relationships that are linked to this way of interpreting, feeling and living the environment, that enable a form of sensing the weather, the climate and the future, in order to plan life and the work in the cornfield in tune with it. It looks at the social, political and ecological layers and networks that unfold from the xook k'iin - from the work in the milpa, food sovereignty, festive and spiritual manifestations, to its importance in confronting climate change, industrialisation, ecocide and deforestation.

It is an invitation to discuss what Xook k'iin means today. What does it mean to practice Xook k'iin? What do we listen to, feel and observe? How do we relate - with the Xook k'iin - to our environment, the mountain, the territory? How do the cycles of nature pass through us in our daily lives? How do the observation of so called announcements or bio-indicators, temporal cycles, women's knowledge and the body-territory  interweave with it? How can we and new generations (re)connect ourselves to this knowledge, which is closely intertwined with territories, cultures, memories, languages, and practices that have been - and continue to be - fragmented and interrupted? How can we walk through time in resistance and with hope?

Each place where the exhibition will be shown has a local context, stories and thematic axes, urgencies and questions. Be it the connection with the local geology, the karst landscape and the water bodies, the observations of the moon and the herbal medicine of the midwives, or the exchange of seeds and the work in the milpa, among others. For this reason, the artistic works also start from a specific place, from the experience and the situated knowledges, from the relational. They were created - and continue to be created - in close dialogue with the spaces and the communities and territories  they inhabit.

Participating in the exhibition:

Gerda Gruber, Mauro Pech, Rafiki Sánchez, Patricia Uh, Estela y Santos Chuc, Mauricio Collí, Omar Said, Ajanbel & Killbeat, Vanessa Rivero, Robin Canul y Grecia Gutierrez, Commaya, Narrativas desde la Mayanidad, Mayur y Tushar Vayeda, Colectivo Xkusamo'ob, Patricia Morales, Roger y Rosa Juárez.

Translations into Maya: Yazmín Tuz Chab

Partners:

Abrahán Collí Tun, Julián Dzul Nah, U Yits Ka'an, Fototeca Tuzik', Centro Cultural Comunitario Cecilia, Iin ki kalante.

We would also like to thank all those who contributed to the exhibition with their time, their wisdom, their practices and teachings from the territory.

You can find the introductory text of the exhibition in Spanish and Mayan in the gallery.

The exhibition in the Centro Cultural Comunitario Cecilia, Tinún, Tenabo, Campeche.

03rd of August - 29th of September 2024

In the Centro Cultural Comunitario Cecilia we celebrate life and contemplation as a seed that germinates and flourishes in the amazement and wonder of the children and youth of Tinún, Tenabo, Campeche.

Our Xa'anil naj is a space for listening and a nest of knowledge; a common house that guards the living memory of our ancestors present in the fire, in the clouds, in the inherited song of the birds, in the red earth, the jungle, the hills, the ears of corn, the cooing of crickets and frogs.

We remember our past and reclaim our Mayan heritage through the knowledge and observation of our grandmothers and grandfathers, readers of the times and cycles of life.

Crédito imágen: Sonetos andantes de la vida y cultura 

In the frame of the exhibition opening at Centro Cultural Comunitario Cecilia,  the podcast Xook k'iin. Mujeres, palabra y territorios was presented. It is a new comission that is added to the exhibition and produced by Narrativas desde la Mayanidad and Commaya - Coordinadora de Mujeres Mayas de Quintana Roo.