ROOTNOTEMUSIC BLOG

Category: Cuerpo-Territorio

Collective memory making and healing among GuateMayan survivors of state inflicted violence through embodied testimonies, public art, and music.
_{^{Collage Art & Illustration by Sylvia Marina Martinez. All collage photos provided by Carla Macal. Gallery photos at end of article are all public domain.}}

Two weeks ago, I published a blog post on the mural & graffiti art and hip-hop music of Lakota artists Derek Smith and Talon Bazille, respectively. As I was writing that post I was simultaneously working on a collage art piece for my cousin’s dissertation to illustrate the concept of cuerpo territorio amongst Indigenous GuateMayan women as they create embodied public memories. I really see the work of both Focus and Bazille as part of this tapestry of claiming space and healing through expression. From Carla’s abstract: “Cuerpo territorio declares the body as our first territory” and the concept is used among healing circles of Indigenous Latin American women to also map and document the violent extraction and abuse of their homeland and/or sacred land territories. Below is Carla’s dissertation abstract and if you want to reach out to her about her work you can reach her by clicking on this link.
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Cuerpo-Territorio: Embodied Transformative Memory and Cartographies of Healing among GuateMaya Feminist Groups:  

“My dissertation closely presents the case studies of two GuateMaya feminist groups that are challenging state-dominant narratives of the Guatemalan 36-year- war (1960-1996) and foregrounding counter-narratives with art, Maya cosmovision spirituality, and gendered embodied memory production. The groups are also denouncing contemporary feminicide cases through the cosmo-political praxis of cuerpo-territorio. Cuerpo-territorio declares the body as our first territory and advocates for a communal subject agency. I develop this deeply embodied framework to examine how 8 Tijax and GuateMaya Mujeres enResistencia-Los Angeles (GMR-LA) are challenging the state’s hegemonic memory by actively engaging in embodied transformative memory experiences, or what I describe as healing cartographies. I assert that such healing cartographies at the scale of the intimate contribute to hemispheric decolonial solidarity. These healing cartographies contradict and actively challenge the Guatemalan state’s claims of what can be remembered or erased when the evidence is embodied and reiterated, told through stories, and brought into being by active remembrance. I use a community-based participatory approach and feminist ethnographic methods to both examine and support the transnational affective solidarity connecting GuateMaya women throughout the hemisphere. My dissertation is a political project of unearthing the counter memory, silences, fear, and intergenerational trauma from the oral and embodied testimonios of GuateMaya women survivors of genocide who are currently involved in collective projects to recover Guatemala’s historical memory. While GuateMaya feminist groups are connected across the United States, Mexico, and Canada, the focus of my study is on the relational testimonios of GuateMaya feminist groups in Guatemala and Los Angeles.
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Carla described her vision of what she was envisioning to illustrate her five years of fieldwork doing workshops in Guatemala and in Los Angeles. She wanted to use the body as a map showcasing the maps of healing as seen through written testimonies of survivors, photos of workshops, the body maps drawn by the survivors in the workshops, the altars and other elements of Mayan spiritual practices, photos of street art and public memorials, and memorial tattoos. I drew the outline of a woman and scanned into photoshop and then combined in layers the photos that Carla provided from her dissertation as well as a map showing the route from Guatemala to Los Angeles. Carla told me that the red carnation symbolized historic memory so I created a flower frame using digital cutouts of photos of carnations. I posted below the video Carla made describing the workshops as well as two Mayan musicians who are singing about the genocide and ancestral memories. It strikes me that the music and poetry also weave collective memories and healing solidarity in space and time to enrich the rich texture of these healing maps. This is all making sure history is told from the perspective of those whose voices would have been attempted to silence for eternity. The myth of Indigenous invisibility should continue to be challenged.

The power and strength of Indigenous folks to resist, survive and thrive from the Northern edge of North America to the Southern tip of South America under the force of extreme oppression cannot be overstated. I feel it my humble duty to use whatever platforms and talents I’ve been given to amplify the stories and voices of those who have been attempted to be silenced for far too long. May we all recognize our interconnectedness and understand that no one is free until we are all free.

Video about Carla’s dissertation.

GuateMayan musician Aurora Nohemi sings about women uniting and culture.

GuateMayan Rebeca Lane – La Cumbia de la Memoria sings about the reality of genocide

Resources and articles below so anyone may educate themselves on the realities of Indigenous Guatemala.

CURRENT INDIGENOUS VISIBILITY & RESISTANCE
HISTORY & DOCUMENTATION OF GUATEMALAN GENOCIDE
CUERPO TERRITORIO
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06/16/2023
Reclaiming Lakota narratives & sovereignty: Hip-hop, graffiti art, creating lyrical medicine
Lakota graffiti artist, muralist and community organizer Derek “Focus” Smith has been challenging the power structure of the “Mississippi of the North” since the early 2000s bringing the power of graffiti and muralism to the Reservation and using his craft to tell the stories of Lakota history and encourage the youth. The art has taken him around the world. I first ran across Focus’ work during the uprisings after the death of George Floyd on Instagram and saw he had contributed a mural in the George Floyd Memorial. As a collage artist, I’m extremely influenced by all forms of political and cultural street art so Focus’ story was extremely compelling and the more I learned the more inspiration I drew from his work. This video below I made using the footage from the talk he gave to the Racing Magpie organization in South Dakota.

The music I used in the video is all by Talon Bazille, a rap artist, producer and sound designer from the Cheyenne River Lakota and Crow Creek Dakota tribes in South Dakota. As a college student at the University of Pennsylvania, Bazille hosted a weekly radio show in an effort to promote underground hip hop artists. As a result, he took the plunge back into creating his own music, which he had begun recording at age 13, under the wing of supportive uncles in South Dakota, producing beats and learning how to engineer audio in the process. Upon graduating with a bachelor’s degree in psychology, Bazille released what he considers his “personal thesis” project: “Sake” (Talon in Dakota), a 51-track self-produced solo album.Today, Bazille lives in South Dakota where he continues to create music, produce other artists, and compose soundscapes. His work has been performed in places like the Kennedy Center all the way to small tribal halls back on the reservation. Here is his latest video:

Royal Rumble – Bazille prod. by Attic Stein

As hip hop culture celebrates 50 years, its reach and influence has encouraged legions of youth from around the globe to give voice to their struggles to tell their stories through the rhymes, beats, and words both creating a visual and sonic movement. The attempt to erase Indigenous history and culture is well-known in the abusive paradigm of settler colonialism that is still attempting to silence and erase the reality of the brutality and hide the hypocrisy in the American story. I see hip hop music (and culture) as the ultimate roots music that has emerged as a form of street journalism narrating the stories of the voiceless. As long as humans have existed, folks have expressed resistance and resilience to oppression through art and music. As many who are paying attention to the current politics the authoritarian extremists are fighting hard to hold onto the last vestiges of a crumbling empire. Any of us alive today regardless of where we live need to realize that “none of us are free until all of us are free.” So many indigenous artists and activists are making their voice heard as poet Joy Harjo writes: “We are still America. We know the rumors of our demise. We spit them out. They die soon.”

https://www.luxcenter.org/artist/focus-smith
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06/13/2023