Proyecto Comunitario del Maíz
2024 - ongoing 
500’, dimensions vary
corn husks, natural dyes, public activation

Proyecto Comunitario del Maíz is an ongoing work utilizing corn husks as creative media to inspire dialogue centering the intellectual property of craft from the greater Latin American Diaspora. Through public engagements, participants twine corn husks onto a single traveling corn husk cordage, connecting themselves to an transcontinental network.

The corn husks that comprise the cordage are sourced from Latin American grocery stores in New York carrying imported corn husks used to make tamales, local mercados of Cholula and Oaxaca Mexico, or neighboring milpas in my grandmother’s village of Chiquimula, Guatemala. The colors of the cordage derive from dye of foraged or salvaged natural matter from sites of my family’s diaspora-representing spaces and time of convivencia.

Mauve purples come from purple corn brew used in making Chicha Morada in my mother’s house in  Queens. Avocado pit left overs from meals in Queens, South Tyrol, Cholula, and Oaxaca, create salmon pinks. Fresh Indigo from my home dye garden, produce aqua marine teals and cochineal and osage residues from natural dye workshops create dusty pinks and orange marmalades. Pale yellows are made from fennel tea bags collected from a food hall in Munich. Rust comes from heirloom red corn from Cholula, and magentas from dried hibiscus used for Agua de Jamaica in my grandmother’s home in Chiquimula, Guatemala.

As participants contribute twined corn husks to the collective cordage, they collaborate in producing the material artifact of a global community. In a handbound book, collaborators record their name, as they wish to be credited whenever the project is exhibited. This gesture serves to record participants but more importantly undos the tradition of the erasure of labor within craft while decentralizing craft knowledge, highlighting plural creatorship. The cordage currently measures over 50 feet crediting, over 43 participating artists from ages 5 to 77.