OaxaCAlifornia: Through the Experience of the Duo Tlacolulokos

Tlacolulokos

Dario Canul (b. 1986) and Cosijoesa Cernas (b. 1992) form the collective Tlacolulokos. Both artists are from the town of Tlacolula, Oaxaca, Mexico, a Zapotec community located in the Central Valley region of the state, and an important center of Zapotec culture. This community has had strong ties to southern California since the 1940’s, when a large number of agricultural workers migrated to the state. Today Oaxaca is also one of the regions within Mexico with the highest migration to the United States.

Tlacolulokos work with a variety of graphic techniques and media such as video, audio, prints, photography, and painting. Their work is figurative and combines different styles such as street art, easel and mural painting, and screen printing. Their work takes place in the streets and in artistic spaces. Through their work, Tlacolulokos offer a reflection of local reality, and the struggles and problems of their place of origin.

Many Mexicans have had to migrate to the US in search of a better life. Those who belong to the various indigenous communities of Oaxaca have been migrating for many decades.

As a result of Oaxacan migration, it is said that California is also Oaxacalifornia; describing a binational culture, a region both real due to the large migrant population but also imagined.

Transcending territorial divisions, it describes not only a continuous flow of people, but also a network of symbols and a culture in reinvention, secured by networks of solidarity and belonging.

In the mural, a priest represents the violent process of spiritual conquest. Religion is depicted in the murals through its contradictions: as a powerful union, and also as a form of social control.

A young man holds a ritual candle that dates to pre-Columbian Oaxaca and is an important religious symbol for collaboration, exchange and sharing, also known as Guelaguetza in Zapotec cultures.

We can see a woman reading a book as a symbol of the need to know one’s own history; a way for the artists to stress the importance of recovering the knowledge that originates from cultural tradition.

The signs indicate areas of LA with a strong Oaxacan migrant presence. The phrase “A City the Size of Your Suffering” expresses the great difficulties that migrants face upon their arrival to the US.

The women in traditional clothing represent the communal networks and dignity that are maintained when families are separated by migration.

The dance regalia is for the Zapotec “Dance of the Feathers,” which depicts the first meeting between the Spanish and the Aztecs, and mixes it with elements associated with Chicano culture in LA.

Through a search for one’s roots, Mexican migrants in the United States have recovered elements of the pre-Hispanic past, which at times ignores the Native cultures of today.

In this mural, the artists present a figure who represents the exact opposite of migration – those who stay in Mexico, but whose families live in the United States. Communities and nuclear families become divided by a border.