Noe Martínez

Critical text

Noe Martínez’s (b. 1986, Michoacán) work departs from his personal history to take a critical stance on what constitutes a common past. He goes deep into understanding how indigenous culture resisted colonial destructiveness nurtured by Western culture and he advocates the ethnic vindication of the indigenous peoples of Mexico. For Present Future, Martínez is developing a body of work focused on the slavery of thousands of people from the Huasteca region in Mexico during the first years of colonisation. Through fabrics and textiles dyed with botanical substances such as tobacco, muicle, and rue, which were used in many rituals for their healing and protective properties, Martínez enacts a symbolic healing in honour of his ancestors. For the artist, the healing process is a metaphor for confronting the wounds left by colonialism.

Text by Fernanda Brenner, Ilaria Gianni