unexpected encounters #10: the arrival of modernity

The discovery of gold and silver in America, the extirpation, enslavement and entombment in mines of the aboriginal population, the beginning of the conquest and looting of the East Indies, the turning of Africa into a warren for the commercial hunting of black-skins, signalized the rosy dawn of the era of capitalist production.

Karl Marx, Capital, Vol. 1


Low angle view of tall buildings

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10.1   art for everyone.  Mexico City, February 3, 2018

Museo Soumaya offers one of the most important private collections in Latin America with more than thirty centuries of art. Under the motto Art for everyone, it motivates dialogue and reflection through social commitment and action.  The collection is comprised of fundamental pieces in western art, archaeological Mesoamerican remains and Asian ivory …

         Museo Soumaya Fundación Carlos Slim has a cultural project inspired by the words of its founder Carlos Slim: let’s find a way to make every fundamental right and need accessible to all. We are committed to the development of Mexican human capital and talent. We aim to enrich and share art, world culture and our national history with everyone.

Museo Soumaya Fundación Carlos Slim website


A person in a wheelchair and a statue

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10.2   the arrival of Modernity.  Mexico City, February 3, 2018

The collection also showcases emblematic pieces from the French Impressionist and European Avant Garde movements alongside their Mexican reconfigurations.

         The collection of the French sculptor Auguste Rodin is one of the largest and most important outside of France and many of these pieces heralded the arrival of Modernity.

Museo Soumaya Fundación Carlos Slim website


A statue of a person and person

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10.3   the kiss.  Mexico City, February 3, 2018

Weighing all and singular the premises with due meditation … [we confirm] free and ample faculty to the aforesaid King Alfonso [of Portugal] to invade, search out, capture, vanquish, and subdue all Saracens and pagans whatsoever … and to reduce their persons to perpetual slavery, and to apply and appropriate to himself and his successors the kingdoms, dukedoms, counties, principalities, dominions, possessions, and goods, and to convert them to his and their use and profit.

Papal Bull Romanus Pontifex (Nicholas V), January 8, 1455 


A mosaic of women washing clothes

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10.4   the bath of tehuantepec.  Mexico City, February 3, 2018

This Land Is My Land is a stealth action game set in an open world resembling the 19th-century American frontier … The gameplay revolves around stemming the invasion of non-indigenous settlers into indigenous territory.

         Every playthrough is different because the world changes every time a player restarts the game. Cities grow differently, camps develop in altered places, and patrols take new routes, so that the player does not have any reference points from the last playthrough.

         The game also features a “karma” system that penalizes the player for taking violent revenge on invading colonizers.

Wikipedia entry “This Land Is My Land”


A painting of a person with a cross

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10.5   the company of jesus.  Mexico City, February 3, 2018

The “doctrine of discovery” is not part of the teaching of the Catholic Church … the Church acknowledges that these papal bulls did not adequately reflect the equal dignity and rights of indigenous peoples. The Church is also aware that the contents of these documents were manipulated for political purposes by competing colonial powers in order to justify immoral acts against indigenous peoples …

Joint Statement of the Dicasteries for Culture and Education and for Promoting Integral Human Development on the “Doctrine of Discovery”, 30.03.2023


A poster of a person holding a hot dog

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10.6   legacy.  Calgary, July 15, 2018

The Calgary Stampede is situated on the traditional territories of the Blackfoot Confederacy (Siksika, Piikani, Kainai), Tsuut’ina, and Îyâxe Nakoda (Bearspaw, Chiniki, Goodstoney) First Nations as well as the Métis Nation of Alberta, Region 3. These lands have always been a gathering place and we are proud to continue that legacy.

land acknowledgment, Calgary Stampede website


commentary

Apart from the cowgirl on the food truck at the Calgary Stampede, an annual Wild West extravaganza that bills itself as “the greatest outdoor show on earth” (10.6), these photographs were taken at the Museo Soumaya in Mexico City.  This private museum houses the art collections of the onetime richest man in the world, Carlos Slim, and is named in memory of his wife Soumaya Domit.  

I0.2 depicts Rodin’s “Thinker”; 10.3 Rodin’s “The Kiss”; 10.4 a detail from Diego Rivera’s last mural, “The Bath of Tehuantepec”; and 10.5 a detail from Botticelli’s “Madonna and Child with Saint John the Baptist.”  

“Land acknowledgements … are short statements that recognize both the land and the Indigenous people who lived—and in many situations continue to live—on the land prior to Canada’s colonial history … they are now offered before events, are commonplace on institutional websites, and are often found in people’s public profiles, social media biographies, and email signatures” (Canadian Encyclopedia).  

The cynic in me says every such land acknowledgment ought to end with the words “and we ain’t goin’ nowhere.”



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