Códice de la Cruz-Badiano

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Hierbitas de Saberes  /  Tiny Herbs of Knowledge
March - June 2023

Famous Hardware Store
113 West Emma Avenue; Springdale, Arkansas

Curated by Lucas Cowan

Famous Hardware Store curations are a partnership between CACHE (Creative Arkansas Community Hub & Exchange) and the Downtown Springdale Alliance, with funding support from the Tyson Family Foundation.


Artist Talk: Join us for a discussion of the exhibition, "Hierbitas de Saberes" (Tiny Herbs of Knowledge) in Downtown Springdale, on April 28, 2023.

Please RSVP

For the Nahua, this flower world was a place of origin, the place where the gods were created and where they generated the movement and combination of forces that made earthly life possible. At the same time this flower world was a time-space of destiny...

– Tamoanchan y Tlalocan, Chap. II
 Austin López

It is said that botanical diversity in México is the result of the physical complexity of the land (territorial extension, altitude, climate diversity, topography, geographic location, etc.) and many of the pre-Hispanic medicinal plants are in current use till this day.  We know so through the existence of a book called the Libellus de Medicinalibus Indorum Herbis or commonly referred to as the Cruz-Badiano codex; a codex of herbology and traditional Mexican medicinal plants created in 1552. Organized into thirteen chapters, it includes 185 beautiful illustrations of medicinal plants used to cure before the arrival of the Spaniards.

In Hierbitas de Saberes I want to share the joy the arrival of spring represents to all of us; my love for flowers, specifically the ones inside the codex, as I reinterpret them using the traditional papel picado technique, with the love, respect and collaboration of papel picado maestro don Rene Mendoza from Huixcolotla, Puebla; as well as reassembling silk flowers to create 13 unique flower pieces, as the total number of chapters found in the codex, inspired by some of the 185 illustrations in the codex.

The Codex De la Cruz-Badiano is considered to be the oldest medical text crafted in the Americas.  It is an invaluable document for humanity and I hope that with Hierbitas de Saberes we reconsider the infinite ways our collective past can nurture and help cure our present times.  This world is built for healing — if it's built for anything at all — and perhaps the flowers included in the installation can begin to show us how.

Hierbitas de Saberes by Miguel Loyola

Curator, Writer & Set Designer Miguel Loyola (@kentauros_mecanico) provided these insights in English and in Spanish...


video:  Hierbitas de Saberes / Tiny Herbs of Knowledge


video:  Hierbitas de Saberes

video realized by German Amezcua.

XOCHI-CHINELA*

Chinelos are a kind of traditional costumed dancer which is popular in the Mexican state of Morelos, parts of the State of Mexico and the Federal District of Mexico City, especially the boroughs of Milpa Alta and Xochimilco.  The tradition arose from the blending of indigenous and Catholic traditions, most notably Carnival, with its permission to be masked and to mock.  Chinelos mock Europeans and European mannerisms from the colonial period up to the end of the 19th century.  The Chinelos tradition is strongest in Morelos, especially around Carnival, but Chinelos now appear at other festivities such as Independence Day celebrations, private parties and more.

Source: Wikipedia

I am wearing an intervened Chinelo hat by yours truly, now CHINELA HAT...  Photo taken by very talented brother Hector Amezcua in Tepoztlan, Morelos, February 2023; that state became our home from 1980-1986.  Part of a large series of photographs, and extensive work, sharing the plant life illustrated in the Codex de la Cruz-Badiano; a project of love, family, roots, resilience and ancestry.

*: term coined by my good friend Paloma Celis-Carbajal

Lost & Found Lab AIR

The Lost and Found Lab is an artist's residency located in Cos Cob, CT created in honor of James Stevenson by the artist Josie Merck.

The Lab's mission is to provide a work and living space to visual artists, scholars, curators, writers, composers, arts professionals and interdisciplinary thinkers drawn to exploring the relationship between visual art and the written word.

I had the honor to be an artist in residence (AIR) at Lost and Found Lab during the month of January 2023 where I continued deepening my research about the Codex de la Cruz-Badiano; thanks to the interminable support of Lost and Found Lab’s team, Josie and Janine.

An unforgettable experience of meeting wonderful humans, continued my research, and was reminded of the power and beauty of gathering around a fire pit.

"But the miracle of nature was the great Mexican aloe, or maguey, whose clustering pyramids of flowers, towering above their dark coronals of leaves, were seen sprinkled over many a broad acre of the table-land.  As we have already noticed its bruised leaves afforded a paste from which paper was manufactured, its juice was fermented into an intoxicating beverage, pulque, of which the natives, to this day, are extremely fond; its leaves further supplied an impenetrable thatch for the more humble dwellings; thread, of which coarse stuffs were made, and strong cords, were drawn from its tough and twisted fibers; pins and needles were made from the thorns at the extremity of its leaves; and the root, when properly cooked, was converted into a palatable and nutritious food.  The agave, in short, was meat, drink, clothing, and writing materials for the Aztec! Surely, never did Nature enclose in so compact a form so many of the elements of human comfort and civilization!"

– William H. Prescott 1843
 History of the Conquest of Mexico and the Conquest of Peru, Modern Library, pp. 79-80

Composite Images of the Flowers in the 13 Chapters in the Codex

Each image is a composite of all the flowers contained in its respective chapter (1 - 13), of the Codex.

FLORAL CURE: Pre-Hispanic Medicinal Flowers

FLORAL CURE: Pre-Hispanic medicinal flowers, consisting of 20 papel picado objects from the 185 illustrations in the Codex de la Cruz-Badiano of which a facsimile copy is in the collection of the Hispanic Society; using the traditional papel picado (paper cutting) technique, its tools and tissue paper.  To conclude her research Blanka also offered a final presentation.

The fellow artists' new works and presentations are supported in part by, the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State.  The Research Artist Fellowship Program is supported, in part, by the Vilcek Foundation.

FY2022 NYSCA funded project in collaboration and support with The Hispanic Society Museum & Library.

Wave Hill Winter Workspace Residency

Wave Hill Winter Workspace artist in residence (AIR), 2022.

Site-specific installation of vivid, cut-paper (papel picado) banners.  Papel picado of shapes and forms found in the plants in the herb garden.

Wave Hill Spring Gala site specific installation (see video below).   The photographs are from the studio, the garden and the gala installation.