Imaginaciones del Mito

Imaginaciones del mito consists of seven three-dimensional pieces in ceramic and resin that reinterpret stories from the ancestral memory of the communities in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. 

Ariza Vólquez's process involved interviews with older residents of Loíza, who shared legends and anecdotes, as well as visits to local museums collections and discussions with archaeologists and historians.

The sculpture Inriri establishes a connection between two Taino myths that highlight female figures in ancestral mythology. The myths represented in the piece are those related to Itiba Cahubaba, who was a cosmic female goddess, also known as the Bleeding Great Mother.

She died during childbirth when her belly was opened to give birth to four twins. From them, humanity and the Taíno universe emerged. Later, her four sons became symbols, the creators of the ocean and the earth, of the Quaternity: the four cardinal points and the four elements. 

The piece  reconfigures a traditional Catholic altarpiece of virgins, placing Yuíza and Anacaona on a double chair, one behind the other, each holding on their laps archaeological pieces representing the female form. 

The ornament that decorates the top of the altarpiece consists of extracts from petroglyphs found at Caguana Indigenous Ceremonial Park (Puerto Rico) and Pomier Cave (the Dominican Republic).

These were drawn by the Loíza artisan Rigoberto Camacho using the technique of pyrography.

1797 proposes a historical dialogue between the victory of the Black and Mulatto militia in Cangrejos against the English invasion in 1797 and the first Black rebellion on the continent in Boca de Nigua in Quisqueya (the Dominican Republic). 

This piece seeks to recontextualize the symbols of the lamb, the Black man, and the vejigante.  The lamb, present in the Puerto Rican coat of arms, is considered a symbol of the Spanish presence in the Americas, granted as the official coat of arms by the Catholic monarchy.

Here, also, the figure of the vejigante is elevated as a noble warrior, subverting traditional associations.

Wilcelino Pizarro 'Celele' provided the mask for the sculpture made from walnut shell.

In representation of this legend, the sculpture consists of a golden chain surrounding a Siamese body, composed by the recreation of two artifacts: one is an African wooden and metal fetish from the Bakongo ethnic group, Democratic Republic of the Congo.

These figures hold an antique European porcelain vessel found in an antique shop in the Dominican Republic. The intention is to establish a connection between both indigenous and African communities that shared the condition of being enslaved and oppressed by Europe.

Archaeologist Ivonne Narganes explained that the Saladoid culture—predominant in Hacienda Grande in Loíza—had a funerary ritual custom of breaking these objects to scare away spirits. In other words, a symbolic death was performed on the personal belongings of the deceased.

According to Taíno mythology, as described by Fray Ramón Pané, when a person dies, the "Guaíza," or soul goes to "Coaybay" (the land of the absent), where it becomes an "opía", or spirit of the dead.