Atl-Tlachinolli: Her(e) on the Land

Abstract

The Nahuatl term Atl-Tlachinolli means Burning-Water, a metaphor and a symbol of the vital contradiction: the inexhaustible transfigurations of the land, and us as part of it, in its other. These double-exposure photomontages are made of spontaneous, in situ, reconfigurations of space under the influence of the Rocky Mountains.

The initial compositions were created during the lockdown of the COVID-19 pandemic while engaged in a one-month, self-directed, residency project. The lockdown had cancelled my arrangements to be part of an artist residency overseas and, from Vancouver, there were few choices to leave the city other than go into the astonishing forests of this region of the world and do camping. The experience of this trip turned into a portal to become aware that the environmental concerns in every one’s mouths (the relations between the pandemic, climate change, and human beings) had a clear resolution rooted in ambiguity: the water is the land, the mountains are part of the clouds of water, the trees are hanging from the sky, the sky is full of rock constellations. We not just looking, we are in there as part of the whole in constant transformation.

Over the following eight months these compositions were slowly developed to produce a final rendition of 14 pigment prints, 17x22in, which can be seen here:

http://josemazamorano.com/main/atl-tlachinolli-here-on-the-land/

Although the five pieces offered in this submission have not yet being exhibited or published, a few prints of the same series were used as “instrumental” devices for Sound Migrations music-video performance which was  presented at Grand Luxe Hall at the Western Front in Vancouver, on October 2020. A brief documentation is available here:

http://josemazamorano.com/main/sound-migrations-at-western-front/