The Sacred Crop

hello and welcome everyone um welcome to the Stephen and Peter Stacks Museum my name is neska Fifer and I'm the museum curator and you are here at the first event of the saxs museum performance series which is tied to the current exhibition on view which is called Colonels of culture maze around the world and it's an exploration of botney and culture and history and Contemporary Art and thanks to the generosity of a museum and garden donor Nancy rittenau um were able who supported the artwork commissions and this performance series were able to interpret this wonderful subject through poetry and musical performance and so we have two artists performing for us today Venezuelan poet and multi-disciplinary artist wesa Fant um investigates the complexities of bilingualism sexuality culture and identity through a lens of Mythology and symbolism and she very generously created a very powerful series uh called The Sacred crop for this exhibition which is on display over there and it explores the profound cultural and spiritual significance of corn in pre-colombian Latin America and um she's joined today by Patrick raferty who is a classical guitarist who performs and teaches in a wide range of popular and World music Styles he's also interested in early guitar repertoire including Renaissance and Baroque music and he'll be performing on the final event of this series which is October 12 so you can always check the museum Instagram at the Garden website for those dates um and I would like you to please join me in welcoming wesa and Patrick to the sax Museum [Applause] [Music] stage thank you so much neska and thank you botanical garden thank you so much to the Peter and sash Museum and obviously Patrick for creating this little piece for all of you to enjoy today my name is wesa fun as n was telling you and I'm really really lucky to be here sharing this yearlong work that I had to do research and then creating art through it and you know the combination of those two things are so powerful art sometimes can be louder than history is for a lot of people um this is a combination of seven poems and seven paintings based on the mythology of corn in pre-columbia Latin America ancient civilizations had corn as a very essential part of their nut rtion but also of their beliefs on their system of deities um they use corn for offerings but also they offered corn to the corn Dees this is a work about the connection with the past and a little journey that I want you to take with me today remember through this that time happens all at the same time and the most powerful instrument of creation is a spoken word the first poem and where our Genesis begins in this this little journey is with the Mayans the Mayans believe that the era of humankind that we're in is part of the fourth creation of humans after several try and error the gods created a paste made out of corn and then they shaped humans from it the first poem is called men of corn before the sun rose before the four pillars became the beacon of our compasses the gods couldn't keep track of the passing Shadows what today we call time and has always been day and night benevolent heart of sky and feather serpent brought animals to life but their mouths couldn't sing songs of worship later came those whose vocal chords got stuck in the mud and its successors built with the hardest wood and the weakest Souls yet their wrinkled hands didn't give up and make mistakes into humans crafting cardinal points into feet binding them with gravity colorful corn ears entered their flesh nourished their limbs and mouths and before the moon went down to behold the rest of their lives the first and last era of humankind [Music] J [Music] J [Music] not only were they made out of corn the tale says that they had corn growing out of their hearts this is a good time to like take a second ground our feet and try to reimagine how your life would look like if you would truly believe that you are one with nature and that nature grows inside of you and you are made out of it wouldn't life be like a little different I think we really would look at history and the future in a brighter light the next poem is called sprouting heart mustn't you travel too far to find the beginning for we all live there and at all times it is part of us through machines and lonely beats looking within and back to the folds the heritage of blood that comes with it the pouring of concrete directly onto our poison scars one picking their eyes of Truth and Detachment two made out of metal three born out of asphalt four lacking connection with everything around five lacking The Ivy that could have the path between soul and mind and six slicing the poles of our corn made hearts missing the point of what we bleed in gold and yellow tones let the leaves and stems grow out of your arteries and flowing kernels back through our pains each one rended with Footprints of the weade your shoulder bear not yours and not for you to get rid of for corn Thou Art and unto human sh thou [Music] become look [Music] we've been talking about the mans we're going to travel a little South to what today we call Peru Peru was ruled by the Incas and the Inca Empire celebrated their own version of the New Year during the winter Solstice they made offerings in the espinat in front of what today is a church and used to be a temple huge mandalas of offerings to in ryy inti is the sun the sun de for the Inca Empire they created offerings with corn fruits and vegetables and they offer them every year to promote the Harvest so that they would have you know a great year of food all the way around the second poem is iny and maybe try a little something different if you trust me by now you can close your eyes just take a deep breath get your eyes closed for a second and I want to paint like a little image this is a little more of a sound type of poem iny traveling through time towards the manifestation of what will be pulsing across the fiber of space bowing to the sun Roots grow from the petals and fruits in the foot Hills of Cusco piercing the concrete of the Esplanade in a caleidoscope of feathers and fluts of shells resonating and rain that cushions the ears of those who come to listen corn begins with the Rays that sculpt its shape and create mandalas with the falling leaves flowers and fruits our sacred crop is ready to harvest a new era for inti Rises [Music] [Applause] for [Music] s [Music] J [Music] I [Music] in [Music] thank you so much for closing your eyes that was very nice um can you open them now please if you have not no I love that a lot of you kept them it the songs that Patrick selected for today were special for each one of the poems it's intentional everything that we're doing today is intentional so I'm going to ask you now to really really open your eyes open your hearts open your mind the next poem is a little political the first non-binary deity ever recorded was aushun namir in the B bonian Legends every culture has its own version of this um cot for the Aztecs was a deity who a lot of translations wrote as cot versus cot female versus male other translations said it was uh Cho makat versus cint female versus male tradition tells us that cot was both names both female and male and neither of them at the same same time the next poem is for Sint Humanity it's slave to its memory addicted to Not Looking Back stuffed with glazing Futures where gender is a bad word buried by sheep scholar and codic erasers labeled slur unnecessary and tempting it's not just you but it's okay to cry you are all of them simultaneously and not what translations impaled in your heart how strong did their words drill Our Roots that we can't conceive Life as we did before before they shamed us for honoring the surrounding Grace for crying when the sky uses for not gendering our duties for not stamping genitals on what is beyond the comprehension of crosses and the body of God I send a prayer to your altar a poem for the exiled ones and a painting dedicated to the grains you were so kind to share overlooking what we had to say to Live Another Day [Music] [Applause] [Music] for [Music] the [Music] [Music] continuing on the azex theme historians have named this thing called The Holy Trinity of a tortilla it's really cool um it is based on three deities one of them we just talked about CH goddess of corn the other two withoat the goddess of salt fertility and chikomo goddess of water Rivers storm and baptism see there are similari is in literally all cultures the love of my life is mythology and metoc critics it's I love finding those little connections so they say that together they form you know the hly Trinity of the tortilla because you need water salt and corn to make this this next poem is called Sisterhood in the name of the womb the lagoons and the hands that crafted the first meal from corn in the name of the mothers their fountains and their hearts in the name of which to see what mother who art among mothers Blessed Be she who heals with salt the wounds inflicted by the waves of the Rio Grande the inherited cross just stating since the encounter of the worlds in the name of chiqu she who wears the Jade's skirt and fills with oceans our cup as it is from the obsidian mountains to the ml in the name of choat who holds the Sun and Rain to her will agile creator of nurturement I cleanse my plate my art and my fate in hopes of sharing your table one day blessed be the existence we call resistance blessed be the teeth that chew the pace of life and Blessed Be The Sisterhood that provides it [Music] every culture has different versions of different things um you probably know by now that I've been a teacher for a long time and I love sharing knowledge with other people the next poem Naka it's about the witold tribe nakawe was their version of their oldtime creator and they also have a version of the flood the tale says that naawe saved one wiol from the flood and other men got jealous and they invited her to a celebration on in her honor where they stole her staff that contained her heart they took it they Buri it in the fields and from that heart the first plant of corn was born NAA great grandmother Unleashed the gods After the flood each one of them a soul a moment an Essence each one of them an atom ready to expand like pixels on a screen composing colors shapes and smells she opened her mind to her children raising the Sun and casting spells of harvest and growth teaching them about the Mysteries that only light can unfold clarifying their sight tapping into the potential of what laid below their feet under her Wing the deities found their homes the spaces where the spirit could manifest its presence in the shape of a mountain a creek a cricket a stack a drop of honey that falls onto the grass or a wiel who Smiles at the fields because she knows that naawe lives both in the corn and the wind that makes songs when it blows kisses through the leaves St [Music] [Music] now [Music] all [Music] I was born in Venezuela and I left this last poem because it's the most important to me it took the longest amount of research because unfortunately our venezualan tribes have they don't have the history that a lot of cultures like the ASC ones have unfortunately our tribes were not Warrior tribes so a lot of that documentation has been lost in the um colonization process it took me a long time and I found this video game made by a velan man called uh Macio wienstein he made a video game based on different deities uh of Venezuela it never got out to the public but it's like there's a little thing about it I talked to him and then I that's when I found all the information about Oma Osa is the corn de for Venezuela or what we know today as Venezuela so in South America it was even less of a like division in between tribes and a lot of them especially in the Caribbean where I'm from they were Nomads so you will see that Oma sometimes you can find him as a deity in what we know today as Cuba or other little islands around so this poem means a lot cuz um there's not just a lot about this you know around there and I really hope that this can stay with you today and you remember that Oma is a de of corn for Venezuela EMA came from the clouds in a time before plants could reach them using the strand of his hair building stairs on caramel corn swirls talking in tongues through a humble squirrel he who cred about the Treasures of the soil and shrined his Spirit In The Whispers of the Wind OA preached about Freedom being the language of the parent who knows when it's time to teach and when it's time to leave he shrank his presence to say goodbye and making the Earth shake was his final Act he has survived the Looting of the pantheon before and I'm set in stone my grain of salt erase my name from your tongue instead breathing with me oa's love and pour it back into the world back into our sacred crop [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh [Music] [Applause] [Music] thank you so [Applause] much I was going to say thank you Patrick thank you Patrick for that and please don't forget to look at the rest of the exhibit today uh the rest of the paintings there's a visual accompany uh for each one of these they're over there and that side also has a part of the exhibit downstairs there's a beautiful uh exhibit of art made with children it's very special thank you so much for being here [Applause]