Our Murals

THE SPIRAL WORD:
THE CODEX ESTÁNFOR

El Centro Chicano y Latino is proud to have beautiful murals throughout our space. Some of the murals are by artist Juana Alicia, and we are lucky enough to have the descriptions and ideas behind the murals she painted on the walls of El Centro. Scroll down to learn more about our murals.

Juana Alicia on her work:

This work is inspired by the history and literature of multiethnic Latinoamerica, from the ancient stories of Popol Vuh to modern Xicanx poetry. Each of the four surfaces has it's own role to play in the story and in the space: this is one of the smallest, most compact and narrative-dense works I have created. The challenge was to create a series of works that altered an institutional-feeling entryway into a sanctuary for some of our collective narratives as multi-faced Latinxs and original propels of these continents. I wanted to create a space for students to find the beauty and honor their identities as Latin Americans at Stanford, to create a space that both narrated our legascies and celebrated our cultural projects. I wanted the murals to create feelings of safety and pride and simulate historical consciousness with regard to our evolution as people. I sought to represent past, present and future realities for Latinx/indigenous students at Stanford.

Mayan Scribe

2012
Digital print and acrylic on canvas
45" X 65"

This scribe has ideas of her own to pen onto the unfolding codex: creation myths and stories of conquest and survival, from the various centuries that she has survived, a witness to our story. She sits with a conch shell full of pigment in one hand, writing stylus in the other, on the trunk of a ceiba tree, its thorns protecting her. Among the ruins of Mesoamerican culture, stone sculptures and ancient masks whisper stories into her ears. The ruins of the barrios of our continents, from Sao Paolo to the Bronx, sit behind her as well, echoing the immigration stories o sacrifice, survival and triumph.

Genesis

2012
Watercolor and digital print
18.5" X 30.55"

The tale of the finished codex above the scribe on the frieze begins with the sacred creation story of the Maya, where the jaguar breathes song into a conch, which sings the creation story of the Popol Vuh: The princess Ixquic is a blooming tree, bearing the strange fruit of the Hun Hunapu's head. With his last breath, he spits into her hand, impregnating her with the warrior twins Hunapu and Xbalanque. They appear later in the story, in the form of the underworld ball game with the gods of Xibalbá (the underworld) as illustrated in the battle scene from the ancient frescos from Bonampak, Chiapas, Mexico.

Conquest and Slavery

2012
Watercolor and digital print
18.5" X 22.4"

In this next panel, the scribe's story continues, with the burning of her libraries, the entrapment of her indigenous and African brothers and sisters, the slave ships landing in the Americas, forced labor in cane and henequen fields, and in the silver and copper mines. The hand of Sor Juana Inez de la Cruz inscribes her observations of injustice, penning the revelations of the first feminist writer of the colonial Americas.

Resistance and Revolution

2012
Watercolor and digital print
18.5" X 30.55"

The large figure of late, great singer Mercedes Sosa, "the voice of Latin America" carries images of struggle and triumph against imperialism on her sarape, bearing the portraits of writers and activists. From left to right:

Cuban poet José Martí
Mexican Zapatistas
Guatemalan women
Chilean composer, songwriter, folklorist, ethnomusicologist and visual artist Violeta Parra
(on her collar) Black freedom fighter Asata Shakur; Nobel Laureate poet Gabriela Mistral and the Mirabal sisters (the Butterflies of the Dominican Republic whose activism brought on the downfall of the dictator Rafael Trujillo)
Mujeres De Negro/Women in Black, mothers of the disappeared women in Juarez, Mexico
African American Athletes Joh Carlos and Tommie Smith raise their fists in the The Black Power salute at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City
Commandante Ramona of the Zapatista addresses the public

Gemelos

2012
Watercolor and digital print
18.5" X 31.76"

The warrior twins of the Popol Vuh, Hunapu and Xbalanque, appear as depicted in the frescoes of Bonampak, Chiapas, Mexico and as modern opposites: the gangster and the dreamer. Behind them, the Ollin butterfly, the Aztec symbol for movement and balance, holds out against the forces of war, nuclear destruction, the fireball of Fukushima and the melting icebergs of our current historical moment.

El Futuro

2012
Watercolor and digital print
18.5" X 29.9"

The year 2012, or 5,334 in the Mayan long count, signals the end of the current cycle and the beginning of a new one, starting over from zero to count into the future. The future holds a vision of reforestation and ecological renewal, with mycelium fungi reclaiming toxic waste sites. The scribe writes back to history, connecting her thoughts and voices with those of her ancestors.

Nopal de Resistencia y Raices

2012
Digital print and acrylic on canvas
9" X 15"

During the process of creating the murals, the cactus bloomed into an organism with its own voice, shaking off any further elaborations. It represents beautiful, burgeoning growth in the harshest of environments, the gift of remaining fruitful and full of water in the middle of a desert, the joyful energy of resistance and the blossoming of ideas and culture. The roots that extend onto the frieze below the ceiling curl into speech glyph forms, pulling inspiration from the earth itself.