Autonomía (Autonomy)

In 1994, coinciding with Mexico signing the North American Free Trade Agreement, the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) was established in Chiapas, a state in the south-east of the country; an armed Indigenous organisation that would later develop into a political movement.
Indigenous Mayan Zapatista men and women have worked for decades on projects encompassing the pedagogical, collective and community dimension of art, taking it on as a practice of cultural resistance in defence of territory. Their creations are tools of struggle, the manifestation of critical thought on the right to autonomy for Indigenous peoples. They deal with issues such as food sovereignty, equality in education, audiovisual literacy, the countryside’s capacity as an alternative way of living in contrast to the developmentalism of cities, the ancestral knowledge of people connected to the Earth, nature, and the culture of maize, as well as the central role of women in conserving and transmitting knowledge and trades. Such motifs are represented in embroidery pieces, paintings, posters, murals, songs, poetry, dance and different forms of artistic expression that are part of daily life in the Caracoles, autonomous communities in different regions where the Zapatista movement is present and which work as spaces of legislation, encounter and administration.

Suset Sánchez Sánchez