Mónica Alcázar-Duarte: U K’ux Kaj / Heart of sky, Mayan god of storms
Why is ancestral knowledge completely disassociated from contemporary knowledge systems? What knowledge systems exist in the more-than-human world?
Artist Mónica Alcázar-Duarte draws on indigenous knowledge systems from the Yucatán peninsula in Mexico, which in turn prioritise the knowledge that plants and animals carry. Bees and their knowledge are central to Mónica’s work in this exhibition.
Her film, developed in 2023, is housed in a structure with a shape reminiscent of a honeycomb cell. For Mayan civilisations, the stingless Xunan kaab bee linked humans and the spirit world, and its honey served important medicinal and nutritional purposes. As worlds are destroyed and reborn, the artist urges to reach for the expertise and intelligence that we’re at risk of losing from both our human ancestors and from other species. The film may represent the beginning of the world, engulfed in flames before its birth, or serve as a warning, urging us to question the knowledge systems we choose to follow in order to prevent destruction.
About Mónica Alcázar-Duarte
Mónica Alcázar-Duarte is a Mexican-British multi-disciplinary visual artist whose work acknowledges her indigenous heritage while exploring current ideals of progress. She lives and works between Mexico and the UK. Migration, with the uneasiness that derives from it, and a need for equality, all play an important role in her work. Her projects are, at some level, acts of survival. A personal attempt to intervene with current practices of representation that grows into a need to engage with the public. Anchored to meticulous research, her work contributes to contemporary thought on social, political, and cultural issues.
Visit Mónica’s website at www.monicaalcazarduarte.com.
