It’s been over a month since my first post – the idea that I’d make regular updates has gone out of the window. Since leaving San José I’ve travelled nearly a thousand kilometres (mostly by bus), crossed three international borders (including one by sea, but that’s for another post) and taken hundreds of photos, which I’m just beginning to sort through and edit.
But since arriving in this multi-hued agglomeration of humans on Saturday I’ve had several experiences that I want to share. Antigua is the first place that’s really pulled me into its heart and vice versa. I’ve had numerous warm and generous welcomes, offers of help and friendship. This is also the first place I’ve felt that pre-hispanic, indigenous cultures are still somewhat present. It’s a tourist town for sure, but it doesn’t feel as spoiled as many others do.
On being deposited mid-morning near the town centre, I dragged my suitcase in brilliant sunshine over roughly cobbled streets, at times with not enough room for two cars to pass let alone an (extra-slow) pedestrian as well. But at no point did anyone sound their horn at me, nor at anyone else, despite heavy stop-start traffic and my occasionally taking up a full lane, an action that in most cities would have resulted in loud expressions of impatience and rage.
After leaving the badly-chosen luggage at my accommodation in the village of Santa Ana on the outskirts of Antigua, I started walking back to the centre. Within a couple of minutes I was at the entrance to La Nueva Fábrica, a community centre and contemporary art gallery that I likely wouldn’t have discovered had I been staying in the city proper.
After a strong cortado in the chicken bus café and a video call with two of my sisters, I entered the exhibition space.
![Text in ES and EN:
para curarnos el susto
Marilyn Boror Bor • Caja Lúdica • María Fernanda Carlos • Centro Q'anil • Rosa Chávez • Colectivo Tz'aqol • GuateMaya • Kiara Aileen Machado • Celeste Mayorga • Movimiento
Nacional de Tejedoras Mayas de Guatemala • Museo del agua • Proyecto Parutz' • Gabriel Rodríguez Pellecer • Selva y cerro • Sonido Quilete • Marta Tuyuc Us • Sergio Valencia Salazar
ES: ¿Como ha resistido Guatemala a la invasión, el despojo, racismo y genocidio? ¿Cómo se manifiesta la sanación frente a las fuerzas coloniales? ¿Quiénes poseen este conocimiento sanador?
A través de estas preguntas, Para curarnos el susto examina la sanación ante la colonialidad, cuestiona quién tiene el poder de sanar y destaca el trabajo de colectivos que emplean el conocimiento ancestral para sanar en un contexto histórico marcado por la negación, la violencia generizada y racial, y la opresión epistémica.
Para la exposición, colectivos de diversas disciplinas han sido invitados a dialogar con artistas.
Estos intercambios se despliegan como un archivo multidisciplinario de prácticas de sanación social, epistémica, comunitaria e individual enraizadas en la región.
El proyecto honra la forma en que las comunidades de Guatemala han navegado la sanación personal y comunitaria y afirmado la vida a pesar de 500 años de violencia sistémica. La exposición celebra las prácticas desarrolladas por colectivos mujeres, guías espirituales, investigadores, artistas e identidades diversas, quienes recurren a formas de conocimiento ancestral para sustentar el cuerpo-territorio de Guatemala.
El título de la expesición se inspira en un poema escrito por Rosa Chávez, en el que la poeta y artista articula caminos hacia la sanación frente al susto colonial:
cartaees yrerseremes iavoz secuperamos nuestra verdad,
recuperamos nuestro lenguaje, recuperamos nuestro cuerpo, recuperamos nuestro tiempo, recuperamos nuestra sangre, recuperamos nuestro aliento, recuperamos nuestra libertad, para curarnos el susto
respiramos profundo y la dignidad del agua que corre por
nuestro cuerpo nos permite fluir y regresa nuestro espíritu, aleteamos con el ritmo de la vida
Vuelvo a la tierra
Vuelvo a salir al mundo
Kintzalii b'i pa ri ulew
kinel chi lo jun mul chi uwach ulew
La exposición está curada por Marilyn Boror Bor y Chantal Figueroa en colaboración con Ilaria Conti y con un comité curatorial integrado por Jimena Pons y Karen Ramos.
EN: How has Guatemala resisted invasion, dispossession, racism, and genocide? What does healing look like in response to colonial forces, and who holds this knowledge?
Through these questions, Para curarnos el susto [To Heal Our Fright] examines the nature of healing in the face of coloniality, questions who holds the power to heal, and centers the work of collectives that use ancestral knowledge in the context of a history marked by denial, gender and racial violence, and epistemic oppression.
For the exhibition, collectives from diverse disciplines have been invited to dialogue with artists. These exchanges resulted into a multidisciplinary archive, capturing societal, communal, and individual healing practices rooted in the region.
The project honors how communities across Guatemala have navigated personal and communal healing and affirmed life despite 500 years of systemic violence. It celebrates the practices developed by collectives, women, spiritual guides, researchers, and artists of diverse identities, all of whom draw upon ancestral knowledge to sustain Guatemala's body-territory.
The title of the exhibition is inspired by a poem written by Rosa Chávez in which the poet
and artist articulates pathways to healing in the face of colonial fright:
and we sing, and we reclaim our voice, reclaim our truth, reclaim our language, reclaim our body, reclaim our time, reclaim our blood, reclaim our breath, reclaim our freedom, to heal ourselves from the fright we breathe deeply, and the dignity of the water running
through our bodies lets us flow
and our spirit returns, we flutter with the rhythm of life
I return to the earth
I step back into the world
kinel chi lo jun mul chi uwach ulew
The exhibition is curated by Marilyn Boror Bor and Chantal Figueroa in collaboration with
Ilaria Conti and with a curatorial committee that includes Jimena Pons and Karen Ramos.](https://photo.cbrody.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/IMG_2311-scaled.jpg)
An intense wave of grief hit me. Reading about the process of creating communal art, a collective attempt to heal from unfathomably huge wrongdoings, felt to me as if I’d heard that a good friend or former lover had just died.
An ash-covered ceramic centrepiece, with four straw mats with piles of candles in different colours equally arranged around it, are placed on a circular carpet made of pine needles, herbs and flowers. A larger circle of mats is arranged on the floor around it. A video screen on the wall behind shows a woman performing a monologue.
I was alone in the gallery space. I sat cross-legged on one of the mats for several minutes, debating whether to cleanse myself with medicinal herbs and light a candle representing one of four elements as per the invitation on the work’s written description. I had sat in front of the white candles, as that was the colour I’d been drawn to, but I couldn’t bring myself to carry out the ritual on my own.
I found the final piece playful and light, which was what I’d apparently sought in choosing the colour of Air.
I left feeling refreshed and walked briskly into town. It was only later, in conversation with A, that I choked and teared up when describing my gallery experience – I’d obviously been affected by the exhibition and its context, but hadn’t expressed it externally at the time. Abya Yala, I wept for you.
Antigua has many well-preserved buildings from the Baroque era, as well as several ruined cathedrals. The town was more or less abandoned in 1776, after volcanic eruptions and earthquakes caused the former colonial capital to be relocated to current Guatemala City.
The last photo and video that follows were a tantalising preview of Sunday’s events.
After a delicious mezcalita and feast of centroamerican fusion cooking, blues-y music coming from cozy candlelit Café No Sé across the road tempted me to look in.
I chatted with and was asked to dance by a woman from Brooklyn celebrating her birthday, drank locally-made beers served by a bartender hailing from Totnes and spoke to a couple of musicians originally from Venezuela and Costa Rica. The manager (previously a New Yorker) opened the bar more than twenty years ago, probably before the city was much on the tourist radar. I had a blast, but unsurprisingly I woke up later than intended.
Most of the centre was closed to traffic for the Semana Santa processions, which happen every Sunday between Lent and Easter. Apparently people believe(d) that their “sins” caused volcanic eruptions and earthquakes, and the processions form part of their penance. With these exquisitely elaborate community-focused traditions, the Catholic church seems to have absorbed (co-opted?) pre-existing indigenous practices.
Large crowds were on the streets, with the day-long event featuring height-matched teams of bearers (I saw people being measured, before I realised what they were up to) swaying massive floats of biblical scenes from side to side, as they trampled ephemeral carpets made of coloured sawdust, pine needles, flowers, fruits, vegetables and other plants. The smell of balsam, herbs and flowers combined with clouds of incense was intense.
That’s it for now, I’m off to Flores in Petén by overnight bus this evening.
I’ve added a couple of links in the menu including to my lightroom gallery, which might just get updated before I post here again.
