Si no fuera por estos momentos

Fernando Palma Rodríguez comes from a Nahua community which became marginalised in the Mexican capital very early on. His work speaks of a reaction to ever-growing, homogenizing capitalism, a reaction whose goal is to encourage the original voices of native culture. In its artistic discourse, political and ideological critics use folklore to transcend localism and merge into global and technological culture (the artist studied engineering), to create a new mysticism imbued with a strong ironic charge. In Si no fuera por estos momentos, the coyote, a symbol of indigenous culture, turns into a new fetish, a symbol of this aggressive post-modern evolution and of a yet to be defined subculture. The video, filmed in 2000, has a nineties’-style aesthetics and an odd narrative structure built up of brief episodes and ritual dances. The coyote and strange robotic idols that move through the city and in sacred places of pre-Columbian culture are symbolic elements of a culture rooted in the past, in contact with people, yet willing – or forced – to wash windshields at intersections.Author: Eva Sangiorgi