Building Beautiful Monsters in Mexico

If you go to Mexico City, in the neighborhood Merced Balbuena, in the intersection of San Nicolás and Oriente, through this rusty iron door and up two flights of stairs, you will meet the family that changed Mexican folk art forever. Uh, sorry, I didn't mean to disturb you. My name is Leonardo Linares Vargas and I make alebrijes. Alebrijes, the fantastical creatures traditionally made out of papier-mâché. Across Mexico, you can find these beautiful monsters everywhere. You can find them in the streets, in the museums, there are workshops of alebrijes scattered around the city, and there's even a huge parade of monumental alebrijes that takes over Mexico City once a year. Ah, and you can catch them in Coco. Are those alebrijes? But what exactly is an alebrije? For me, an alebrije is a fantastic figure that has to carry at least three elements of earth, water, fire, and air. From earth, you can carry a lion. From air, you can carry a bird. From fire, you can carry the eyes of a hawk, the lips of a viper. And from the sea, you can carry some fins, some crests, to be able to carry a composition of what for me, Leonardo, would be an alebrije. And all of this vast tradition can be traced back to one man, Pedro Linares, Leonardo's grandpa, who said that after falling into a coma, had a nightmare where some very dark and horrific creatures kept screaming the word alebrije to him. Alebrijes, alebrijes. Not long after waking up, he started building the first alebrijes. And now his son and grandchildren continue the tradition. I don't think we ever thought what would happen and the scope of the figures that my grandfather had seen in his coma. Everything that has been done has always come from here. First, it has been inspired from here. And then many people reproduce it. Why is art important? Because it is part of our essence as a country, as a people. Many times we have been called the guardians of popular art.