Research project, 2024—ongoing

Pedro, a parrot from the state of Tampico (northeastern Mexico), grew up in my family.
Pedro is my home. Pedro is the starting point of my research. Before the “colonization”
of the Americas, there were feather artisans known as amantecas. In Mesoamerican
cultures, the use of birds was a reference to Quetzalcoatl, the feathered serpent (a god
in Aztec mythology). This deity was the protector of the art of featherwork. Feathers
were used for ritual, funerary, festive, and warrior purposes; their crafting required
great skill. As soon as they arrived, the Spanish asked the “natives” to create miniature
religious images using this technique. These objects, known as feather mosaics,
captivated Europe between the 16th and 18th centuries. Feather mosaics made from
bird feathers served both to evangelize and colonize Indigenous communities, as well
as to introduce the Western concept of the image to the Americas. Unfortunately, the
technique —like the mosaics themselves— has almost entirely disappeared.


Chapter I: Pedro

My affection for Pedro and the problematic nature of the image carried by bird feather
mosaics led me to question certain globalized images. Images we all hold in our
collective imagination, and which, in my generation, we remember from childhood. It is
thanks to mangas like Sailor Moon, Saint Seiya, Captain Tsubasa, and Ranma ½ that
I can engage in dialogue, conversation, and shared interests with people from other
cultures, which makes me feel that (geo-political) borders do not exist. Through these
new feather mosaics that I create, I want to revive a technique devalued by history
and that once held great significance in my culture. Thanks to contemporary art, these
feather images can open up dialogue, foster debate, and, above all, highlight the
violence endured by exotic birds since the extractivism that began in the 16th century.

Chapter II: The Theft of Images

This second chapter reclaims the word MOSAIC as a metaphor for the colonial
process —that is, the appropriation of a technique as a method of recognition and
naming based on Western references. This chapter seeks to explore the potential of
the feather as a material within this context. My interest in the history of Andalusian
mosaics in Spain, in the works of Gaudí, and in the curved, stylized forms of natural
elements in Art Nouveau and Art Deco, led me to explore the sculptural creation of
objects using bird feathers. My aim is to create a contemporary reinterpretation of the
technique and its history, and to question its naming conventions.