Ana Hernández exhibition: an artist from the Isthmus of Oaxaca, rescues ancient textile pieces and fishing trade tools presents at NN Gallery

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The artist Ana Hernández, originally from Santo Domingo Tehuantepec, presents her new visual proposal at the NN Gallery in the state capital, called “Bixhia”. The show is related to the traditional musical piece “Son benda bixhia / Son del pez”, which is only performed in Tehuantepec during the Santa María patron saint festivities.

The 75 pieces that revolve around pre-Hispanic dance, fishing, and elements that give identity to the Isthmian woman such as textiles, were developed by Ana Hernández for almost five years in various techniques such as ceramics, textiles, stencils, sculpture. About Bixhia, the writer Víctor Cata wrote the following in the presentation:

“The memory of Ana Hernandez is a gold coin that illuminates her childhood, recreates her grandmother who embodies all the women in her house, holds the image of a huge fish with the body of a snake and the jaws of a saurian, she turns, turns with the wooden skeleton. “

“El son benda bixhia” are from the fish “, the dance that only men perform to remember how they caught an elusive fish, but in this creative proposal by Ana, it is the women’s dance; her petticoats and petticoats come and go, they are like cast nets that unfold in a night sea, at times it seems that they are flying, like an eagle looking north and drinking the wind. ”, says the researcher on Zapotec culture.

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To achieve her proposal, Ana Hernández, worked with various artists from the region of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec such as the master craftsman goldsmith of the Fifth Section of Juchitán, Cándido Santiago, the master weaver of San Mateo del Mar, Aleida Oviedo. 

In Bixhia the viewer also takes a tour of 12 textile pieces that seek to rescue old models of the chain and that the artist reproduced with metallic rice threads, these pieces were rescued by Ana in her first book.

“This exhibition is based on a dance that continues to be danced in Tehuantepec, it is important for me that this knowledge of the community such as dance, textiles, trades such as fishing, remain present because that makes community and sister.”, explains Ana Hernández ”.

The exhibition of this Zapotec artist can be seen until January 22 at the NN Gallery in the Jalatlaco neighborhood of Oaxaca city.

The Oaxaca Post