NAOMI RINCÓN GALLARDO PRESENTS THE TZITZIMIME TRILOGY AT LA CASA ENCENDIDA

In Aztec mythology, the Tzitzimime were female deities linked to fertility and rain, but at the same time feared for their ability to descend to Earth and devour men during solar eclipses, when it was feared that darkness would reign forever. The powerful Mesoamerican deities play a central role in Rincón Gallardo's films, in which pre-Hispanic cosmology meets a queer future in a bleak landscape of planetary cataclysm. The characters in Rincón Gallardo's films emerge from ecological emergencies, both local and planetary, historical and current injustices and patriarchal oppression, and in no case do they convey the illusion of a "radiant" future.

Deep in their political and critical messages, these films, however, are not confined to the arid terrain of theory. On the contrary, their explosive combination of surrealist aesthetics, music, performance, homemade costumes, sculptures and humor generates powerful fables to "get on with the problem" in a creative and non-normative way. As they wander through wastelands and uninhabitable spaces –the result of greedy capitalist extraction of natural resources– the pre-colonial deities befriend animals, non-human beings, fragmented body parts and characters from the underworld. Together, they seek possible forms of resilience, resurrection and re-existence in this cataclysmic world. Their weapons for survival are pleasure, desire and solidarity embodied.

The Tzitzimime Trilogy, in which the worlds of the dead, the undead and the living merge without visible borders, concludes with Eclipse, an event of cosmic dimensions feared by the peoples of the past. An eclipse heralds the culmination of the multiple endings of the world, which accelerate and intensify in an era of collapse. The Sun is devoured by the Moon, darkness emerges victorious and the Tzitzimime descend to Earth to devour men; it is the planet itself that undertakes an act of cosmic self-defense.

Naomi Rincón Gallerdo is a visual artist and researcher who currently lives and works between Mexico City and Oaxaca. From a decolonial queer perspective, her research-driven formation of oneiric and critical-mythological worlds addresses the creation of counter-worlds in neocolonial frameworks. The artist incorporates her interest in theatrical games, popular music, Mesoamerican cosmologies, speculative fiction, vernacular festivities and crafts, decolonial feminisms and queer criticism of color into her production.