Nature is not a place to visit, it is our home.
The on-site installation Nature is not a place to visit, it is our home, explores the earth’s ongoing metamorphosis through the relationship of organic mediums and the passage of time. The work utilizes soils and materials from the local region, and questions the many possibilities for life that can emerge from the earth itself through crafted objects called ayate.
Ayate are the woven trusses of natural fibers, used since Mesoamerican times, to collect and transport crops. For Uranga, it’s vital to revive this ancient method for transporting and proliferating organic life from one space to another.
Just as ayate were used to move species of crops across the different trade routes of pre-hispanic México, the artist uses these today to reference the changes and growth that occur naturally, with the passage of time. Thus, the ayate becomes a growing, ever-extending organism, embracing all who cross its path. A path that begins, and ends, with the earth…
Written by Tan Uranga and Ulises Olvera
Photographs by Noel Higareda