Omar Castillo Alfaro

Lives and works in Paris, France

Artist statement

My practice take its roots in the legacy of artisanal and ancestral knowledge inherited by my family. I explore non-linear forms of storytelling. I use history as a pretext to excavate, both literally and symbolically, the layers of my Nahuatl-Otomí indigenous fragmented identity from Mexico. These layers have been shaped by the socio-political processes that have marked my indigenous region from pre-Hispanic times to the present day. My hands are my primary creative tool. They convey a bodily memory shaped by the gestures of the ones I love. I work with the knowledge of earth and clay, beeswax, feather art connected to the ancestral practice of the Aztec Amantecas, and with carved stone. Through these materials, I created immersive installations that breathe new life into the mythologies conveyed by these techniques, and that aligns with Mesoamerican futurism, which views ancestral techniques as alternative approaches to be explored and valued in the context of current political and climatic crises. For me these Mesoamerican futurisms serve as a pretext for generating a new aesthetic vocabulary to nourish and contribute to the questioning of colonial and postcolonial history. My extensive research has led him to work directly with ethnographic museums such as the Louvre Museum and Quai Branly Museum (Paris), the Museo de América (Madrid) and the British Museum (London), which has enabled him to conduct critical research into the nomenclature of the archaeological...

Artwork