Curator Eva Posas interviewed Ana Hernández, with whom she shared a series of reflections on research and artistic practice, identity and circulation in the world of contemporary art.
Eva Posas[EP]: Padiuxi Ana, xi modo nuluu?1 Your work touches on themes such as language, migration, and the Binniza/Zapotec identity of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. Could you elaborate on these imaginaries that you invoke through your work? What are the questions that haunt you?
Ana Hernández[AH]: When I started working on a line of research, I did so with migration. Since I was young, I was affected by this phenomenon: my brother went to Germany, my sister to Oaxaca, my mother to the United States and I to CDMX. This made me think that there was a great absence between us, something that we were missing. There I began to reflect on how, in one way or another, we are all migrants, some of us distraught and others not so much. The Zapotec language and identity come to me from memory. I only recently started learning it, because, like many young people, it was not given to me; in my family, it began to die out in my parents' generation. However, my grandmother was a speaker and her whole life was based on that communication system. Learning to speak Diidxaza —Isthmus Zapotec— was essential for me to question certain things about the Binniza identity.
I think that I, like any human being, ask myself many questions, such as: What does it mean to be Mexican? What is happening on the other side of the world? Why is there a shortage of water? Where did those who exploit the land come from?
EP: Many of us can recognize ourselves in this close relationship with migration, whether from town to town, city or country. This makes me think about (non-)belonging, about the difficulty between being a migrant, “from outside” and the longing for one’s origins. How do you feel about that? How do you experience this tension?
AH: I used to think about it a lot and that's why one of my first pieces is called Rutas de ausencia [Routes of Absence] (2015), where I embroider a large map of Mexico to draw an imaginary route of absence. There, I trace what my mother told me about her journey when migrating. In reality, she does not know the exact route because the coyote kept it secret, so she did not know where he passed through.
It was so difficult to make this work because it represented the illusion of being able to see my mother. As the daughter of an [irregular] migrant, I thought I would never get a visa. Then, the opportunity to participate in an exhibition in the United States came up and I was excited to be able to go. Marietta Bernstorff invited me to attend sewing workshops in San Francisco Tanivet, Oaxaca, and then to participate in the New Codex exhibition, which was presented at SPARC, Los Angeles, in 2015. These workshops were also with Las hormigas bordadoras in Tanivet, a town where the majority have migrated to the north. That place was crucial to know that I was not the only one, that the absence of family members was shared there.
In the end, not all participants in this exhibition were granted a 10-year visa. They only gave it to me for days. At the immigration office, they asked me about everything, except about my mother. There I realized that, in fact, they knew about her situation and that was why my visa was only for 5 days. My mother and I were afraid that they were watching me, so we decided not to see each other and, sadly, the hope of seeing my mother with this project, well, it just didn't happen. And the map made it across the border, and I thought about how humans are restricted, while artwork, an object, was not. It could easily cross over to be at an exhibit that spoke about such personal pain. That work marked my life: humans can’t cross over, but artwork can.
EP: The other day we were talking about the differences between teachers as instructors or as people who guide you in life and you mentioned your mother, could you share more about that?
AH: To talk about my work, I find it necessary to talk about my training, because it is part of my history. I worked at Amigos del Instituto de Artes Graficas de Oaxaca (IAGO)
and at the Centro Fotografico Manuel Alvarez Bravo (CFMAB), both in the city of Oaxaca. There were many tools there, it was up to you whether to take them or not. Previously, while I was studying, I was fortunate to take the workshops that were offered, thanks to my mother who went to the United States. I am very blessed because she told me: "If you want to study, I will help you" and that's why he crossed the border. So I didn't have the need to work and study like other classmates. Thanks to my mother, I was able to educate myself, become who I am now and do what I do, I owe everything to her. Of course, this “privilege” came at the cost of her absence, because my mom was somewhere else. So, if I had to give recognition to someone, it would be my mother, Manuela Martinez. It is because of her that I had the opportunity.
EP: Regarding your work at IAGO, what were the most significant lessons you learned in this space?
AH: Not being a speaker of my language, it was very nice to get to know the roots of people and talk to Ayuuk or Ikoot people. I made contact with people from the villages who came to work on the teaching materials. It was at that moment that I understood that we were not the only ones who spoke another language in Tehuantepec; there is a rather great diversity of other peoples. I loved when they told me about their places of origin. That was valuable: contact with people. Many adults are doing something for their languages within their communities; everywhere, there is someone trying to help.
I sent notebooks in the language of each corresponding place, for example, with a cover of an animal with the name written in their own language. I was in charge of sending them to remote places, coordinating the chain from Oaxaca to the truck, from there to the cousin, until finishing with the megaphone to locate the language teachers. It was very nice to see that no matter the distance, the language was connected through paper.
EP: This awareness of language, its lack and the contrast with the enormous diversity of the region, is presented in your intervention for the FEMSA Biennial. In Redasilu (2024), the installation of 68 bowls or gourds that correspond to the number of native languages in Mexico, is accompanied by a sound manifesto about them. Can you talk about the statements in this manifesto?
AH: The manifesto or the questions that appear in that text are the first words that I learned and the first sentences that I began to write in Diidxaza. Tehuantepec has lost its language considerably and I had always wondered why my grandmother was the last in my family to speak it. More than 60 variants of 16 different languages are spoken in Oaxaca, almost 30% of the country's languages. I find it super interesting, sad and exciting to think that at some point there have been more than 60 different ways of saying water, girl or god.
EP: One of the most widespread myths regarding the Binniza or Zapotec culture of the Isthmus is that it was forged as a matriarchal society. Along those lines, some of your works lean towards gender issues. Can you tell us about it, in particular about the work entitled Benda Bixhia?
AH: The Bixhia (2021) series is inspired by the Son del Pez Espada (Sound of the Swordfish), which is actually a sawfish. It is a dance that has intrigued me since I was a child, more than anything because it has always been a song that men dance and I wondered why women don’t. There have always been things and topics everywhere that are addressed exclusively to men or women, and that has always interested me a bit.
EP: In this work, there is also a series on the bidaani’ or Isthmian huipil. As an object, it holds an enormous complexity of meanings, and in some way functions as a “book” of knowledge and differs from the idea of the Western concept of “art”. What is this work with the huipiles like? How do you decide what to take, what to leave, and how? What has it been developed in relation to artisans?
AH: In this case, the process began with the illustrations that Miguel Covarrubias made in southern Mexico. I took them to some women and most of them told me that there were several of them that were no longer made, so what we did was reproduce them. In the process, we found others with the same older artisans. It was from my grandmother that I heard the names of some patterns.
All my work has a symbolic part, a reason for it. In the case of chains, it's a matter of seeing it. The way I learn is by seeing and in that seeing, I appreciate the ways of life. That is why clothing is a form of knowledge; we can recognize ourselves as women of the Isthmus or ikoots. You don't need to express it, you can tell with the clothes; that is the book of knowledge. There is a reason for the colors and the fabrics, depending on each culture. An exhibition I am currently preparing talks about women and their clothing as a way of reading and getting to know us. Including the contradictions that it implies, as in the case of velvet from the Isthmus.
In clothing, there is always a color that represents a certain strength in each community, each one has its own language. I also believe that, as women, we have a need to innovate. This fascination comes from my grandmother, from seeing how my mother made her clothing, in contrast to her, who no longer wore her petticoat or huipil. I was amazed to see this dialogue between them and then that of my grandmother with other ladies in the neighborhood. What happened to my mother's generation that she no longer wore her clothes? Why did she only wear it to parties, if it was so beautiful? While my grandmother wore her plain, ribbon huipil and her chucu petticoat.2 It is important to emphasize that the outfit also implied status due to the fabrics or tailoring techniques used, which denoted economic means. Now, my mother makes my petticoats, even in patchwork, a technique she learned back in the United States.
EP: Back to the language through the petticoat, I had seen before that Rio Blanco makes these outfits with words in diidxaza printed on them. Can you tell us what this is about and who is involved in the project?
AH: Rio Blanco is a group of friends: Francisco Ramos, Rodrigo Vasquez, Orlando Santiago, Liliana Berenice, Josa Angel Santiago and I, who got together after the pandemic. We were concerned that there was no information on how to wear face masks and prevent infection, so we made posters to provide information. It is called Rio Blanco because of the river that is here, behind the house in Xochimilco, Oaxaca. Later on, a silkscreen printing workshop was formed, where we tried to make materials to spread the language, with t-shirts or petticoats with animals and their name in Diidxaza. It is an approach to language through everyday clothing. Imagine a fabric store that was full of textiles with pictures and their words in the language. How nice would that be? At what point does your clothing become alien to you? That's the sad thing.
EP: Finally, what are the negotiations you face when it comes to using languages of contemporary art such as “indigenous art” and when creating appropriate vehicles to point out the existing work conditions as a female Zapotec artist?
AH: I didn't know I was indigenous until I was invited to a talk on the international day of "indigenous" peoples. At that moment, I knew it was the beginning of this, now I know there is a categorization and I don't want to be categorized. We are no longer in the time of “I name you and I categorize you”; I think it is a delicate matter. What I do is not done thinking about that role. If you categorize me, it's like saying that I am only here in that moment (I, Ana), but I am Ana for the rest of my life. I see that there are many artists who at this moment have the need —originated from the outside—, to “be indigenous”, supposedly because of their grandparents or their father. I am not proud to be called indigenous; I think it is a term that is historically very loaded. It's like you have to expose the most difficult thing you've experienced in your life, and I think we all have our good and bad moments. There are ways, like in Rutas de la ausencia. If you see it, it's a beautiful map, a code with a flower where my mom and I learned where we are.
[1] “Hello, Ana. How are you?” in Diidxaza or Isthmus Zapotec.
[2] Bizuudi’ chucu or short petticoat, is a type of cotton skirt that was used as underwear for the Zapotec clothing of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec.
*The images accompanying the interview correspond to LADI BEÑE, 2025 by the artist Ana Hernández, recorded by Luvia Lazo, courtesy of the artist and Campeche, Mexico City.
Eva Posas[EP]: Padiuxi Ana, xi modo nuluu?1 Your work touches on themes such as language, migration, and the Binniza/Zapotec identity of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. Could you elaborate on these imaginaries that you invoke through your work? What are the questions that haunt you?
Ana Hernández[AH]: When I started working on a line of research, I did so with migration. Since I was young, I was affected by this phenomenon: my brother went to Germany, my sister to Oaxaca, my mother to the United States and I to CDMX. This made me think that there was a great absence between us, something that we were missing. There I began to reflect on how, in one way or another, we are all migrants, some of us distraught and others not so much. The Zapotec language and identity come to me from memory. I only recently started learning it, because, like many young people, it was not given to me; in my family, it began to die out in my parents' generation. However, my grandmother was a speaker and her whole life was based on that communication system. Learning to speak Diidxaza —Isthmus Zapotec— was essential for me to question certain things about the Binniza identity.
I think that I, like any human being, ask myself many questions, such as: What does it mean to be Mexican? What is happening on the other side of the world? Why is there a shortage of water? Where did those who exploit the land come from?
EP: Many of us can recognize ourselves in this close relationship with migration, whether from town to town, city or country. This makes me think about (non-)belonging, about the difficulty between being a migrant, “from outside” and the longing for one’s origins. How do you feel about that? How do you experience this tension?
AH: I used to think about it a lot and that's why one of my first pieces is called Rutas de ausencia [Routes of Absence] (2015), where I embroider a large map of Mexico to draw an imaginary route of absence. There, I trace what my mother told me about her journey when migrating. In reality, she does not know the exact route because the coyote kept it secret, so she did not know where he passed through.
It was so difficult to make this work because it represented the illusion of being able to see my mother. As the daughter of an [irregular] migrant, I thought I would never get a visa. Then, the opportunity to participate in an exhibition in the United States came up and I was excited to be able to go. Marietta Bernstorff invited me to attend sewing workshops in San Francisco Tanivet, Oaxaca, and then to participate in the New Codex exhibition, which was presented at SPARC, Los Angeles, in 2015. These workshops were also with Las hormigas bordadoras in Tanivet, a town where the majority have migrated to the north. That place was crucial to know that I was not the only one, that the absence of family members was shared there.
In the end, not all participants in this exhibition were granted a 10-year visa. They only gave it to me for days. At the immigration office, they asked me about everything, except about my mother. There I realized that, in fact, they knew about her situation and that was why my visa was only for 5 days. My mother and I were afraid that they were watching me, so we decided not to see each other and, sadly, the hope of seeing my mother with this project, well, it just didn't happen. And the map made it across the border, and I thought about how humans are restricted, while artwork, an object, was not. It could easily cross over to be at an exhibit that spoke about such personal pain. That work marked my life: humans can’t cross over, but artwork can.
EP: The other day we were talking about the differences between teachers as instructors or as people who guide you in life and you mentioned your mother, could you share more about that?
AH: To talk about my work, I find it necessary to talk about my training, because it is part of my history. I worked at Amigos del Instituto de Artes Graficas de Oaxaca (IAGO)
and at the Centro Fotografico Manuel Alvarez Bravo (CFMAB), both in the city of Oaxaca. There were many tools there, it was up to you whether to take them or not. Previously, while I was studying, I was fortunate to take the workshops that were offered, thanks to my mother who went to the United States. I am very blessed because she told me: "If you want to study, I will help you" and that's why he crossed the border. So I didn't have the need to work and study like other classmates. Thanks to my mother, I was able to educate myself, become who I am now and do what I do, I owe everything to her. Of course, this “privilege” came at the cost of her absence, because my mom was somewhere else. So, if I had to give recognition to someone, it would be my mother, Manuela Martinez. It is because of her that I had the opportunity.
EP: Regarding your work at IAGO, what were the most significant lessons you learned in this space?
AH: Not being a speaker of my language, it was very nice to get to know the roots of people and talk to Ayuuk or Ikoot people. I made contact with people from the villages who came to work on the teaching materials. It was at that moment that I understood that we were not the only ones who spoke another language in Tehuantepec; there is a rather great diversity of other peoples. I loved when they told me about their places of origin. That was valuable: contact with people. Many adults are doing something for their languages within their communities; everywhere, there is someone trying to help.
I sent notebooks in the language of each corresponding place, for example, with a cover of an animal with the name written in their own language. I was in charge of sending them to remote places, coordinating the chain from Oaxaca to the truck, from there to the cousin, until finishing with the megaphone to locate the language teachers. It was very nice to see that no matter the distance, the language was connected through paper.
EP: This awareness of language, its lack and the contrast with the enormous diversity of the region, is presented in your intervention for the FEMSA Biennial. In Redasilu (2024), the installation of 68 bowls or gourds that correspond to the number of native languages in Mexico, is accompanied by a sound manifesto about them. Can you talk about the statements in this manifesto?
AH: The manifesto or the questions that appear in that text are the first words that I learned and the first sentences that I began to write in Diidxaza. Tehuantepec has lost its language considerably and I had always wondered why my grandmother was the last in my family to speak it. More than 60 variants of 16 different languages are spoken in Oaxaca, almost 30% of the country's languages. I find it super interesting, sad and exciting to think that at some point there have been more than 60 different ways of saying water, girl or god.
EP: One of the most widespread myths regarding the Binniza or Zapotec culture of the Isthmus is that it was forged as a matriarchal society. Along those lines, some of your works lean towards gender issues. Can you tell us about it, in particular about the work entitled Benda Bixhia?
AH: The Bixhia (2021) series is inspired by the Son del Pez Espada (Sound of the Swordfish), which is actually a sawfish. It is a dance that has intrigued me since I was a child, more than anything because it has always been a song that men dance and I wondered why women don’t. There have always been things and topics everywhere that are addressed exclusively to men or women, and that has always interested me a bit.
EP: In this work, there is also a series on the bidaani’ or Isthmian huipil. As an object, it holds an enormous complexity of meanings, and in some way functions as a “book” of knowledge and differs from the idea of the Western concept of “art”. What is this work with the huipiles like? How do you decide what to take, what to leave, and how? What has it been developed in relation to artisans?
AH: In this case, the process began with the illustrations that Miguel Covarrubias made in southern Mexico. I took them to some women and most of them told me that there were several of them that were no longer made, so what we did was reproduce them. In the process, we found others with the same older artisans. It was from my grandmother that I heard the names of some patterns.
All my work has a symbolic part, a reason for it. In the case of chains, it's a matter of seeing it. The way I learn is by seeing and in that seeing, I appreciate the ways of life. That is why clothing is a form of knowledge; we can recognize ourselves as women of the Isthmus or ikoots. You don't need to express it, you can tell with the clothes; that is the book of knowledge. There is a reason for the colors and the fabrics, depending on each culture. An exhibition I am currently preparing talks about women and their clothing as a way of reading and getting to know us. Including the contradictions that it implies, as in the case of velvet from the Isthmus.
In clothing, there is always a color that represents a certain strength in each community, each one has its own language. I also believe that, as women, we have a need to innovate. This fascination comes from my grandmother, from seeing how my mother made her clothing, in contrast to her, who no longer wore her petticoat or huipil. I was amazed to see this dialogue between them and then that of my grandmother with other ladies in the neighborhood. What happened to my mother's generation that she no longer wore her clothes? Why did she only wear it to parties, if it was so beautiful? While my grandmother wore her plain, ribbon huipil and her chucu petticoat.2 It is important to emphasize that the outfit also implied status due to the fabrics or tailoring techniques used, which denoted economic means. Now, my mother makes my petticoats, even in patchwork, a technique she learned back in the United States.
EP: Back to the language through the petticoat, I had seen before that Rio Blanco makes these outfits with words in diidxaza printed on them. Can you tell us what this is about and who is involved in the project?
AH: Rio Blanco is a group of friends: Francisco Ramos, Rodrigo Vasquez, Orlando Santiago, Liliana Berenice, Josa Angel Santiago and I, who got together after the pandemic. We were concerned that there was no information on how to wear face masks and prevent infection, so we made posters to provide information. It is called Rio Blanco because of the river that is here, behind the house in Xochimilco, Oaxaca. Later on, a silkscreen printing workshop was formed, where we tried to make materials to spread the language, with t-shirts or petticoats with animals and their name in Diidxaza. It is an approach to language through everyday clothing. Imagine a fabric store that was full of textiles with pictures and their words in the language. How nice would that be? At what point does your clothing become alien to you? That's the sad thing.
EP: Finally, what are the negotiations you face when it comes to using languages of contemporary art such as “indigenous art” and when creating appropriate vehicles to point out the existing work conditions as a female Zapotec artist?
AH: I didn't know I was indigenous until I was invited to a talk on the international day of "indigenous" peoples. At that moment, I knew it was the beginning of this, now I know there is a categorization and I don't want to be categorized. We are no longer in the time of “I name you and I categorize you”; I think it is a delicate matter. What I do is not done thinking about that role. If you categorize me, it's like saying that I am only here in that moment (I, Ana), but I am Ana for the rest of my life. I see that there are many artists who at this moment have the need —originated from the outside—, to “be indigenous”, supposedly because of their grandparents or their father. I am not proud to be called indigenous; I think it is a term that is historically very loaded. It's like you have to expose the most difficult thing you've experienced in your life, and I think we all have our good and bad moments. There are ways, like in Rutas de la ausencia. If you see it, it's a beautiful map, a code with a flower where my mom and I learned where we are.
[1] “Hello, Ana. How are you?” in Diidxaza or Isthmus Zapotec.
[2] Bizuudi’ chucu or short petticoat, is a type of cotton skirt that was used as underwear for the Zapotec clothing of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec.
*The images accompanying the interview correspond to LADI BEÑE, 2025 by the artist Ana Hernández, recorded by Luvia Lazo, courtesy of the artist and Campeche, Mexico City.
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