Ironies of Amate Paper / Ironias de un papel amate

Under a wave of blows, a frantic rock crushes, pounds, and binds together fibers extracted from the bark of trees; “Ars longa, vita brevis”—art (or science) is lasting, but life is short. This is how Ironies of an Amate Paper begins its discourse.

Since pre-Hispanic Mesoamerican times, and today from our own land, an ancient way of making paper has endured across centuries. Amate paper becomes the medium to expose the irony not only of the blows within art—or art itself being struck—but also to allude to the struggles of our present reality. Ironically, it is a paper produced by beating bark fibers, and so, what can one expect from something so beaten? Precisely those blows make it stronger—not only metaphorically, but also through the very technique of its making.

In the background, light exposes the cut-out text and reveals the chaotic rhythm of the fibers, resembling the threads of life within this restless multitude.