On this page you will find English-language audio excerpts from the artist about her practice and selected works, as well as information on the archaeological objects she refers to. The content accompanies you from the ground floor to the upper floor.

In the texts below and in the exhibition signage, you will find words highlighted in bold. These terms and names are important for the exhibition and are explained in a glossary, which you can access here.

Link to glossary

Mariana Castillo Deball took the so-called “Nuremberg Map of Tenochtitlan” (fig. 1) as the starting point for an installation of the same title. Until now, Castillo Deball’s work has been presented as a continuous floor installation. You can see a photograph of the complete floor by clicking the arrow on the right (fig. 2).

For the NMN, the artist developed a fragmented presentation across the three façade rooms on the ground floor. The individual floor elements also function as oversized woodcuts. For the work Atlas (fig. 3), Castillo Deball printed the individual elements onto paper and bound them into a book. Because the engravings are right-reading, the prints appear reversed.

The textile work Unbound Atlas (fig. 4), which hangs from the balustrade of the upper floor, is in turn based on photographs of the book pages. It reassembles the fragmented map—and also presents it in reverse.

Several linocuts in the exhibition refer to a statue of the Aztec deity Coatlicue, now housed in the Museo Nacional de Antropología in Mexico City. This statue is the most famous representation of the deity and has therefore been widely reproduced - in casts, replicas, and prints. The image below (fig. 1) shows the first published drawing of the Coatlicue statue by Antonio de Léon y Gama from 1790. By clicking the arrow to the right, you can explore Castillo Deball’s works that reference Léon y Gama’s drawing (figs. 2 and 3).

The drawing below (fig. 1) was made by an unknown artist and published in the codex "Historia de Tlaxcala" (1562–1592). The Spanish caption describes the scene: “The pyre of all the clothing, books, and utensils of the idolatrous priests, which the monks burned.” Based on this drawing, Castillo Deball created a mural on-site at the NMN. The artist was fascinated by this depiction because it visually records both Mesoamerican culture and its destruction, marking the beginning of the new Christian era in Mesoamerica.

Several works in the exhibition refer to the Aztec moon deity Coyolxauhqui, who, according to Aztec mythology, was violently killed and dismembered. She is therefore often depicted as a fragmented woman in Aztec iconography. At the base of the Templo Mayor staircase in present-day Mexico City, a circular relief stone symbolically marked her death. This so-called Moon Stone (c. 1500; fig. 1) shows Coyolxauhqui with severed limbs and was discovered during roadworks in 1978. The paper work The stronger the light your shadow cuts deeper (fig. 2) engages with the deity’s fragmented depiction, while the video work There is a space later in time where you are just a memory (fig. 3) explores the Moon Stone’s recontextualization following its archaeological excavation.