WIXARITARI: People Walking Towards Dawn | Huichol Art by Jos� Benitez S�nchez

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Saturday, June 27th, 2015
12:00 PM to 5:00 PM

WIXARITARI: PEOPLE WALKING TOWARDS DAWN Huichol Art by José Benitez Sánchez

The Art Gallery at Vancouver Island University
Entrance 5D, Building 330 900 Fifth Street Nanaimo, BC, V9R 5S5

Hours: 12-5pm Tuesday to Saturday

Huichol Art by José Benítez Sánchez ​

In the WIXARITARI: People Walking Towards Dawn exhibition we learn about the three worlds of the Huichol universe through yarn paintings done with colorful fibers on boards covered in beeswax or pine sap by the mara’akame (shaman) José Benítez Sánchez (1938-2009), whose indigenous name means the silent walker.

One of the most famous Huichol artists, Benítez Sánchez was perhaps the last in a generation of shamans who devoted their lives to the wisdom of initiation and artistic creation. His body of artistic work is both aesthetic and suggestive, inviting us to contemplate it in awe. The Huichol live in western Mexico in an area that is difficult to access for those who are not used to walking long distances through the mountains. They are also called the Wixaritari, and are well known for the vibrant beauty of their ritualistic art, their refined embroideries and weavings, and their rich mythology. The Huichol practice their ancestors’ beliefs, structuring their community life and rituals around them. The Huichol believe that the universe has been divided into three worlds, which are found in both their mythology and in their local geography: the ocean to the west, where life begins; the mountains, where the activities of everyday life take place, and the Desert of Dawn to the east, where the Huichols perform a pilgrimage in search of illumination. For over twenty-five years, the magazine

Artes de México, owner of the collection, has been dedicated to the most fascinating expressions in Mexican art, among them work created by indigenous peoples.

Hosted by the Art Gallery of the Vancouver Island University, with the support of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs through the Consulate General of Mexico in Vancouver, this exhibit happens alongside the June 2015 Canada-Mexico Roundtable.

Curated by Gabriela Olmos, Deputy Director, Artes de México.

Public Programming

Friday July 10: The Wixaritari and the Heart of the World Lecture by Dr. Anthony Shelton.

Lecture takes place on July 10, 2:30 to 3:15pm Building 355, Room 203, Vancouver Island University, Attendance is free

The Wixaritari (Huichol), who live in the mountainous, isolated parts of northwest Mexico, have retained a unique cosmology despite continuous threats to despoil their land and sacred sites. Their homeland was created through the sacrifice of their ancestral deities who became transformed into the land, mountains, seas and plant and animal forms that surround them. This presentation will open a glimpse into this world and describe some of their techniques and philosophy which enables them to see what is invisible to others.

Dr. Shelton is Director of the Museum of Anthropology and Professor of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia. Dr. Shelton specializes in critical museology and heritage studies, the anthropology of art and aesthetics, and Latin American and European visual cultures. He has over 150 publications including Art, Anthropology and Aesthetics (with J. Coote. 1992) and Heaven, Hell and Somewhere In-Between, Portuguese Popular Art and Culture (2015), and is currently working on a volume on critical museology.

Dr. Shelton's lecture will be followed at 3:30pm by an opportunity to meet him while viewing the WIXARITARI PEOPLE WALKING TOWARDS DAWN exhibition.