Summer 1995 Vol. 6, No. 3

WENDY EWALD: RETRATOS Y SUENOS/PORTRAITS AND DREAMS, PHOTOGRAPHS BY MEXICAN CHILDREN

Wendy Ewald: Retratos y Sueños/Portraits and Dreams, Photographs by Mexican Children will be on display at the Meadows Museum at Southern Methodist University in Dallas from June 9 - August 6. The exhibit features photographs and written texts by children from two different communities in Mexico.

American photographer Wendy Ewald spent several months during 1991 working with children inMaya villages in Chiapas and in the nearby colonial city of San Cristóbal de las Casas. The Tzotzíl Indians, descendants of the great Maya culture, and the Ladinos, descendants of the original Spanish explorers, have been living side by side in Chiapas, the southernmost state of Mexico, since the 1950s.

Eighty photographs in color and black-and-white, ranging from snapshot to mural size and accompanied by texts of the children's stories along with Ewalds's commentaries, look at Indian and Ladino life in the rugged, mist-shrouded highlands of Chiapas.

The photographs, which include family portraits, self-portraits, landscapes, dreams and fantasies, record the children's personal and collective histories and combine stories with photographs in a manner inspired by Maya codices.

There is a powerful tension in Retratos y Sueños/Portraits and Dreams between the child as an individual, as a member of the community, and as a Mexican native. The photographs serve as both group and self-portraits; the audience comes to realize that personal histories are informed as much by collective experience as by individual thought.

Wendy Ewald: Retratos y Sueños/Portraits and Dreams is organized and circulated by Curatorial Assistance, Los Angeles. This exhibit has been sponsored by Polaroid Corporation. For more information on this exhibit, please call the Meadows Museum at (214) 768-2516 or 768-1674.