On this final Friday of 2023, we end the year with a slightly different fine-press production, issues 1 and 7 of the Mexican arts journal La Jícara, published in San Crístobal de Las Casas, Chiapas, México by Taller Leñateros in 1994 and 1997. These issues were silkscreen printed on craft paper sprinkled with atol agrio, a characteristic masa-drink of San Cristóbal de las Casas, under the direction of Taller Leñateros founder Amber Past and art director Estela Hernández.
Past, an American-born Mexican poet, founded Taller Leñateros in 1975 as a Mayan book arts collective in Chiapas. La Jícara, which refers to a bowl or cup made from a gourd, was developed as a literary, artistic, and historical journal to preserve and promote Mayan and mestizo culture.
‘MEMORIAL TO 418 PALESTINIAN VILLAGES WHICH WERE DESTROYED, DEPOPULATED AND OCCUPIED BY ISRAEL IN 1948’ (2001), is a work by Palestinian artist Emily Jacir, born in 1972, featuring a refugee tent embroidered with the names of Palestinian villages impacted by Israeli expansion.
[Image id: three photos, all from the West Bank in 1988. The first is a young Palestinian in jeans, sneakers, and a jacket with a keffiyeh hiding their face. They are holding a slingshot. The second photo shows a Resistance fighter in the foreground, also wearing blue jeans, sneakers, a jacket, and a keffiyeh, aiming their slingshot. Behind them is a crowd of other Palestinians dressed similarly, some of them picking up rocks to throw. The third photo shows two Palestinians, one wearing a keffiyeh over their face and waving the Palestinian flag while holding up a peace sign. Behind them, another Palestinian is jumping into the air and aiming their slingshot. Behind them is a wall with red graffiti that has been covered over. /end id]
