“From the Ground Up: Nurturing Diversity in Hostile Environments” Opens This Friday
iris yirei hu, mud song dream sequence (still), 2024. Video and clay; 24 x 30 x 6. Animation: Shoop Rozario.
Did you know that cultivating a grain can be an act of rebellion? A traditional food in Mexico and Central and South America, amaranth was banned by European colonizers, who assumed that the grain’s association with indigenous religions would interfere with their intent to spread Catholicism.
Inspired by the seed, “From the Ground Up: Nurturing Diversity in Hostile Environments” is a new group show that opens at the Armory Center for the Arts in Pasadena on Friday, August 9.
The project begins before you even enter the Armory, where you’ll spy a vibrant crimson and gold field of amaranth growing in front of the historic 1932 building, a former California Guard armory located on Raymond Avenue in Old Pasadena.
This unique exhibition examines the injustices and traumas of colonization, climate change, racism, and genocide. The artworks were created by a collective made up of indigenous farmers, plantworkers, and artists from Guatemala, the Southwest, and Northern California.
This collective, “Malaqatel Ija, Semillas Viajeras, Seed Travels” comprises the Achi, Spanish, and English words for “seed travels.” (If you’re not familiar with Achi, it’s a Mayan language spoken in the region of Guatemala from which the seeds originated.)
