Unfolding

Art

Back in the summer of 2020, I attended to a professional development workshop hosted by Maked Ed, where participants explored diverse storytelling tools to share about their own identities and culture through making.

Inspired by the land, history and lifestyle of my hometown, Mexicali, Baja California, well known as the "city that captured the sun" and an oasis in the middle of the desert, well know for its valley, hard work, richness and a binational relationship with the United States, I wrote the following poem:

"Unfolding" by Bárbara Yarza

If I were the mountains, I would celebrate the foundations.
If I was a river, I would flow through nations.
If I was the sun, I would hug the Cachanilla land.

Why should I define myself,
and limit myself, if I am all?
I am constantly unfolding;
I am stronger, lighter and brighter.

Little did I know that months later the poem would "unfold" into something else: A cyanotype print casted with the sun of Mexicali, Baja California, my hometown and place that inspired the poem.

"Unfolding" is an invitation for the viewer to observe, discover and give it its own meaning. A metaphor that celebrates the work, changes and processes of the layers in constant discovery that intersect with the sun, the Centinela hill and the Colorado River, a story of which we are all a part.

_{Materials: Cyanotype, mirror, wooden frame
Selected artwork for the binational exhibition "Crisis y Cosecha" by IV Equity & Justice and SDSU Steppling Art Gallery}