race/culture/identity

Photo Essay: The Streets of Mexico City’s Colonia Condesa

by Ekua on January 31, 2012 · 8 comments in captured on memory card,Mexico,street art

One overcast afternoon in Mexico City, I took to the streets of Colonia Condesa armed with a small camera and backed up by posse of creative people who are as passionate about the D.F. as I am. We did what I love doing independently; we walked all over the neighborhood aimlessly, taking pictures of everything.

I was with the group I’d spent the day with at the art school while they worked on their mural. It was an awesome experience to walk around with people who enjoyed making regular stops to take pictures and we had six sets of eyes to pick up all the details of the neighborhood.

Condesa is one of Mexico City’s more famous colonias. It’s another one of the Barrios Mágicos and it’s known for being a trendy part of town. But like the rest of the D.F., you can always find a bit of grittiness and a few quirks in the mix:

A flower stall at busy intersection.

More flowers for sale.

ECOBICI, Mexico City’s bike sharing program.

Pretty tiles in cracked wall.

A restaurant waiting for its dinnertime crowd.

The “Love Ambulance”.

Creative wheat paste advertisements for a website that provides guides to the city. I identify with the woman in the upper left hand corner who has springs where her feet should be.

Separate bins for compost and regular waste in Parque Mexico. A friend from Mexico tells me that people don’t pay attention to this and throw their trash into any bin, but I like the effort and the potential it has.

The art deco street signs in Condesa are charming.

The Lindberg Theater in Parque Mexico being used for skating and recreation.

A building uniquely decorated with globe shaped light fixtures.

The Condesa branch of a Mexico City bookstore called El Pendulo. The Polanco branch is the most famous, but this one is also wonderful.

Of course once inside El Pendulo, I gravitated towards this.

Really great street art painted onto a piece of paper and attached to a post. Sorry if this scared you as you were scrolling down!

More street art. I like the way whoever did it took advantage of an already deep red wall to make something simple and vivid.

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Photo Essay: Scenes from Mexico City’s “Barrios Mágicos” and Beyond

by Ekua on January 22, 2012 · 12 comments in captured on memory card,Mexico,street art

On paper, the size and population of Mexico City can seem overwhelming. But aside from when I’m downtown or using the busy metro system, it often surprises me how the city doesn’t feel as populated or massive as it really is.

There are 16 boroughs in Mexico City, and within each borough are several neighborhoods. Some of the boroughs like Coyoacán and Xochimilco used to be separate towns that were swallowed up by the city over time.

While Mexico City as a whole seems to revolve around the historical center, more than other cities I’ve visited, the individual neighborhoods tend to have their own distinct character and vivacious centers. To me, this makes Mexico City feel more like a unified collection of towns rather than the big sprawling mass that it is.

In 2011, Mexico City decided to designate 21 of the most charming and historical neighborhoods as  “Barrios Magicos” (Magical Neighborhoods). Unsurprisingly, as a visitor to Mexico City, I’ve spent the bulk of my time in places that are on that list. Here are some everyday images from two of them, Roma and Coyoacán (and a few more from just outside):

 

An old bus turned in to public art parked outside a square in Roma.

Beautiful architecture in Roma.

A street in Coyoacán, not far from Frida Kahlo’s Casa Azul.

The area around the central plazas of Coyoacán can be lively at night. It was a rainy night, but there were several vendors, plenty of people out, and live music under a tent in one of the plazas.

I love the joy in this photo. And the churros were delicious.

During the day I spent at CenArt, we picked up tortas for lunch in a charming neighborhood just outside Coyoacán. The flowers above and the following pictures were taken there.

Etched into a sidewalk. It made me a little wistful about my time in Cuba when I saw it.

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Photo Essay: My Day at Art School in Mexico City

by Ekua on January 14, 2012 · 10 comments in captured on memory card,Mexico,street art

As I mentioned in a previous post, I had a friend from the States who was in Mexico City at the same time as me. She was there with a small art class and they were kind enough to let me tag along for one day of their mural painting.

The wall space they were provided with was located at CenArt, a colorful multidisciplinary art and education center in the Coyoacan borough of Mexico City. Painting is not a medium I specialize in, but I did get to put in a few strokes of light blue for the sky. I really enjoyed being in that environment for the day, surrounded by creative people in such an artistic space:

Really great art work on display on display in one of the lobbies.

Even the workshop space looked so artistic.

A work in progress.

A little garden made with recycled scraps.

Their almost finished mural against a backdrop of two very colorful buildings.

The resident cat relaxing in the bushes.

Centro Nacional de las Artes (CenArt)
Avenida Rio Churubusco 79
Colonia Country Club
Coyoacán, 04220
Ciudad de México

Visit their website for information on performances and exhibitions.

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Photo Essay: Mexico City’s Chapultepec Park and National Museum of Anthropology

by Ekua on January 8, 2012 · 0 comments in captured on memory card,Mexico,race/culture/identity

In addition to wanting to explore a new colonia, I decided to base myself in the Roma-Condesa area for a few days so I could be just a little closer to Mexico City’s Chapultepec Park. On my first full day back in the D.F., I took a long and self-misguided walk to the park, and eventually found it with a lot of help from kind people along the way.

Chapultepec is akin to Central Park; it’s a huge tree-filled refuge from the city that houses various sights of interest and cultural institutions. One the most notable of them is the Museo Nacional de Antropologia. If you’ve been following my Mexico posts, you know that I have a keen interest in Mexico’s history and culture. This museum was like a culmination of all the places and stories I’d examined thus far plus an introduction to parts of Mexico and its history that I have yet to explore.

I didn’t get to spend too much time in the park, but I did enjoy my walk in on my way to the museum and seeing more unexpected sides of Mexico City.

A monument to the Ninoes Heroes, six teenage soldiers who died defending the castle in Chapultepec during the Mexican-American War.

The base of a large sculpture and fountain in the courtyard of the Museo Nacional de Antropologia.  It’s called “El Paraguas” and resembles a giant ornate umbrella that doesn’t protect you from the rain.

This is kind of like a plea to be remembered. Beautiful and applicable for the setting, but at the same time it’s sad to think about how what has been forced out of existence by oppression often gets reduced to a museum exhibit.

A hologram wall depicting faces of people or their skulls depending on where you’re standing. A poignant reminder of our similarities beneath the surface.

A model of Teotihuacan’s Temple of Quetzalcoatl.

A map of Tenochtitlan, i.e., what the area Mexico City encompasses looked like before the Spanish arrived and eventually drained the lake.

An Olmec head. These are incredible. In addition to being enormous, these heads are also known for their features which puzzle people because they more closely resemble African or Pacific Islander features than those of Mexico’s indigenous populations.

Portraits and stories of indigenous people of Mexico. I really like the way this was presented.

In one part of the museum, they use mannequins and sets to present life size depictions of culture in different parts of Mexico. Pictured here is Volador from the state of Veracruz. Apparently if you are lucky, there are certain times when the museum holds live performances of the Danza de los Voladores.

Beads, alebrijes and other crafts from the state of Oaxaca.

An intricate Tree of Life sculpture.

Tip: The Museo Nacional de Antropologia is extensive, so if you want to visit it, I recommend setting aside a whole day for it and another separate day for Chapultepec park.

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Photo of the Day: Bursting Through the Berlin Wall

by Ekua on November 9, 2011 · 6 comments in captured on memory card,Germany,street art

As I was sifting through photos last night, I came across this shot of one of the coolest murals I saw in the street art-friendly city of Berlin. I spotted it at the East Side Gallery, a long stretch of murals that cover a section of remnants of the Berlin Wall.

The car smashing through the wall is a Trabant, the main vehicle of the German Democratic Republic (the former East Germany). The license place displays the date, November 9, 1989. That was the day the Berlin Wall fell.

I remember that day and the events that followed. I saw images of it on the news. Crowds poured across the border, people partied on top of the wall, and the emotions were intense. I was way too young to have any idea why such a border could exist and what the fall of it really meant, but I knew it was something big.

My young mind also couldn’t have imagined that almost twenty-two years later, I’d find myself standing in some of those same places I saw on the news, now with an understanding of that wall’s significance and a palpable sense of the potency of witnessing and experiencing history.

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