Diary of a Juera: Arte Calle

Mexico is a land equally rich in history, heritage, and art. The birthplace of artistic revolutionaries like Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros. I was amazed by the amount of street art on my trip. Oaxaca and San Cristobal are cities that have an active community base, and have displayed their participation and opinions with events like the teachers strike in 2006, when people took to the streets of Oaxaca rioting against the poor compensation of teachers, bashing windows and even resulting in the death of one American journalist, which of course yielded national attention. San Cristobal hosted the Zapatista revolution in 1994, taking the lead from Emanuel Zapata, who was disgusted by the unbalance of capital wealth in captitalism as a result of cheap Mexican labor. Some tourists were kidnapped to balance the situation, but the State of Chaipas has since simmered, and Ovetic, the Zapatista compound, welcomes tourist traffic, but a passport is necessary upon arrival. In some ways the remnants of these events still lurk on the streets in the form of stencil art, the civic participation now taking form in spray paint.

Of course not all of the street 'art' can even be dubbed thus, and there will always be kids running around with spray cans claiming to be rebels or artists, but many of the images are politically motivated by social justice and government issues.

San Cristobal

It was interesting to see Bush in San Cris, in the dirtiest undercut of the city.






Oaxaca