El Cimarrón Y Su Fandango is a photographic series that introduces us to the Afro-descendant that has lived in Mexican territory since the time of the conquest. The project speaks allegorically about the past of this black community and its members’ journey through the fluctuations of colonial history, their integration into the Mexican territory, and their sense of identity within it. Yet that past isn’t merely a descriptive historical concept; it is, above all, a definition of the present. A present, in the case of their Afro-Mexican descendants, that remains marginal, unstable, and immemorial.
During the day, El Cimarrón Y Su Fandango can be viewed on monitors inside the ICP Museum and during evening hours, images are literally “projected” onto the windows of the ICP Museum; they can be viewed from the sidewalk outside the Museum and are most visible after sunset.
This installment of ICP Projected was co-curated by Lucy Pike, photography director of WeTransfer. Listen to a conversation with Mara about her project The Little-Known World of the Afro-Mexican, in which she documents an African community living in Mexico.
About the Artist
Mara Sánchez Renero (Mexico) studied photography in Barcelona, Spain, where she lived for 10 years. She was part of the collective boom of 2008 in Spain, where she was co-founder of the collective Malocchio and PHACTO project. Since 2012, she has focused mainly on issues of identity within the Mexican territory where she currently lives.
Her work has received awards and been exhibited in several parts of the world, including France, Switzerland, India, Spain, Cuba, India, Haiti, Panama, and Mexico. She received the first place prize of the 2015 POY Latam in the category “Nuestra Mirada de memoria e identidad” and the 2015 Revelation SAIF Award at the Voices Off festival in Arles, France. Most recently, she has received a grant from Sistema Nacional de Creadores of Mexico (FONCA 2018-2020).
In her work, Renero is interested in finding places where she can create a scenario to explore the instability of the human condition. In her images we can witness the dissolution of constructed identity. In isolating men and women from their everyday contexts and instead portraying them within the space of their imaginary fabrication, their mythical existence confronts what’s uncertain about human nature.
