Title
Huipil Maya
Subject
"I have always been fascinated by indigenous textiles from around the world. I studied anthropology, and then did various different things until, in 2016, I traveled to Latin America with the idea of finding myself. Growing up in a country where everything is super structured when you are not can be difficult. In the end, I lived for four years in Mexico, in Quintana Roo.
My Mexican friends had huipiles, and I fell in love with them. They told me about how each town has its own huipil. I traveled to Chiapas and Guatemala (a friend of mine worked for three years at an NGO in Xela) – especially the museum in San Cristobal and a workshop there where they explain a lot about the huipiles and how they tell the stories of the towns.
When I returned to Switzerland, I took some time to reorient myself and started working as a primary school teacher. At the same time, I needed to work through my memories and process them. That’s when one of my pieces, called ‘Huipil Maya,’ came about, and I still have it with me.
I tried to translate the medium of textile onto wood and to show the few people here who see that piece (which is not very warm or colorful) a little of what I saw and experienced in different parts of Latin America."
My Mexican friends had huipiles, and I fell in love with them. They told me about how each town has its own huipil. I traveled to Chiapas and Guatemala (a friend of mine worked for three years at an NGO in Xela) – especially the museum in San Cristobal and a workshop there where they explain a lot about the huipiles and how they tell the stories of the towns.
When I returned to Switzerland, I took some time to reorient myself and started working as a primary school teacher. At the same time, I needed to work through my memories and process them. That’s when one of my pieces, called ‘Huipil Maya,’ came about, and I still have it with me.
I tried to translate the medium of textile onto wood and to show the few people here who see that piece (which is not very warm or colorful) a little of what I saw and experienced in different parts of Latin America."
Description
Swiss artist Fanie Simon creates wood panels, inspired by Mayan huipiles.
Creator
Fanie Simon