From Altruism to Mediation: Oaxacan Art's Involvement In The Oaxacan Conflict

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This paper will analyse the altruistic and community-oriented behaviour of Oaxacan artists with special reference to the current extreme and historical social and political conditions in Mexico that have caused the May 2006 teachers strike in Oaxaca to evolve in to a continuing five-month violent, political struggle which in turn caused the Oaxacan art market to take a severe decrease in sales and outside interest whilst at the same time forcing a drastic increment in the need for the already-socially-active artistic community to take sides in, lead, articulate and even mediate the resulting events. The rapidly-evolving media industry and media-awareness; increasing access to, and creation of, digital media; and a developing transparency in Mexico, promoted by the current president’s new ‘Transparency Law’ implemented in June 2003; factors that have combined to create a real-time, multi-faceted investigative and media-combative arena that unearths, presents and discusses political parties’ ideologies, spending and actions that pits all against all (with, perhaps, a winner-takes-all prize structure) in an all-comers (all stakeholders) open. In Oaxaca, public reaction began in the form of the annual teachers’ strike turning in to an almost-revolution which is still in progress and has seen the creation of a popular and very unofficial governing body, the APPO (‘the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca’) controlling the centre of the state capital and purposefully introducing a state of ‘non-governablilty’ across the city and state towards the destitution of the state governor, Ulises Ruiz Ortiz, accused of political violence and wide-scale corruption. This week is predicted to see a violent end to this situation according to federal, state and popular government sources and learned opinion.

Stream: Art in Communities

Paper: A paper has not yet been submitted.

My research aims to prove that the art of Demián Flores Cortes provides evidence of a postmodern nature to Mexican society and contemporary living which is a product of both the recent decades of consumerist popular culture characteristic of European and North American civilisations and a predisposition to such a manner of living due to the fragmented nature of its history. This fragmentation is an effect of invasion, colonialisation, geographical roots of numerous distinct and separate races alongside the modern day location as the poor nearest neighbour to the current world super-power, the United States of America. Can it be seen that the international success and impact of the contemporary Oaxacan art studied provides some evidence of an evolving global culture through and due to postmodernity?

Are the applications of highly accessible, mass media, real-time, global information dissemination tools, created by postmodernism, in the fields of commercial and political marketing accurately and justly criticised in the discussion offered by the cultural producers studied?

As responsible for the contemporary art studied, can postmodernism be seen to have created a wider, political and altruistic role for Oaxacan artists in Oaxacan society and beside other Mexican artists in the national Mexican political and social arenas due to these mass information dissemination tools having been integrated into modern living at all levels of society? Is this role an evolutionary consequence of the role of artists in Pre-Hispanic cultures, the difference now being the financial wealth and media empowerment of artists?

Are contemporary cultural producers in Oaxaca and Mexico able to use their empowerment to provide positive comment and promote constructive ideas in reaction to current events in the political arena in which they now roam and act alongside the rulers and legislators who were once strictly their masters?