Future Carriers of Our Past, 2017

“Who owns History? Everyone and no one…”

Eric Foner, Who Owns History? Rethinking the Past in a Changing World


At the beginning of 2017, my path crossed with the Xico Valley Community Museum at the Chalco Valley in the State of Mexico and I instantly fell in love with the community work they were exerting.

While spending some time there, I stumbled upon small fragments of broken pots and vessels on the premises. Not at all uncommon events, where figurines, obsidian knifes and fossils are usually found not only on the museum but on the whole Xico Valley. These are remains of Aztec, Teotiuhuacan, Coyotlatec, Chalco Ploychrome and Toltec cultures that date back to Pre-classic and even Pre-historic periods.

Postmodernism seems to defy restoration processes, “ancient” seems less and less important to future generations and salvaging these pieces of history from further fragmentation and eventual pulverization, could be a mean of preserving something unique. My proposal is to reappropriate some of these fragments, create a gold or silver base for these fragments to transform them as jewelry, pendants or brooches.

This will make the carrier, a living entity that can become a safeguard for these pieces, providing a one of a kind adornment that not only denotes the craft from the pre-hispanic artist, but the “emphatic responsibility” of being akin to another civilization through the bearing of a significant object from the Mexican culture.

Thanks to Neri and Genaro Altamirano from the Xico Valley Community Museum and Tanya Moss for the guidance of the jewelry process.

Timeless Fragments, Chromatic Vibrations between Water and Earth
Palazzo Granafei-Nervegna, Brindisi, IT