Hola Cultura launches partnership with Knowledge Commons DC
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Sign up now for a free class by award-winning D.C. artist Frida Larios!
D.C. artist and typographic designer Frida Larios recalls how she first began to identify with her indigenous roots while studying in England, far from her native El Salvador. This personal awaking provided the inspiration that has evolved into her award-winning “Maya Alphabet of Modern Times,” a contemporary re-envisioning of the language used by the ancient Maya scribes.
“It opens a window into the past that is also a future,” Larios says of the project.
While this collection of script is borrowed from her indigenous heritage, Larios has created something new with the intention of speaking to and for today’s Maya. Drawn from the tradition of the Maya mythic narrative, Larios’ Maya logo-Alphabet seeks to pass on the symbolic beauty and meaning of this Pre-Columbian heritage to people of all ages through her books, installations, sculptures, garments, jewelry, and toys.
For those who attended Hola Cultura’s TamalFest DC in December 2016, you will recognize Larios’ work in our new logo, which incorporates the ancient Maya symbol for the Tamal, one of the America’s oldest foods.
This spring Hola Cultura is excited to be collaborating with Larios again to pilot a new partnership with Knowledge Commons DC, a free school that offers hundreds of free or low-cost classes around the District each year. On Tuesday, May 23, Larios will teach a free 90-minute bilingual class that could be described as “New Maya Language” 101.
All KCDC classes are free. Space is limited, however, so go over to Knowledge Commons DC and sign up before all the spots are gone!
The May 23 class will be held at the American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center, in concert with an exhibition of Larios’ work up now through the end of the month.
Larios will teach for the first half of the class, setting aside ample time to answer questions from students. No prior knowledge of Maya culture is required. Both Spanish and English speakers are welcome. The class and handouts will be English-Spanish bilingual and focus on the symbolism behind the Maya script. Larios will impart the basic intention behind the ancestral language and how her Lego-like Maya Alphabet of Modern Times system works. In the process, she will discuss how she uses the ancestral script not only to explore past cultural ways of life but to navigate the future of Maya culture as a whole.
Frida Larios is a Regional Ambassador for the Americas for the International Indigenous Design Network (INDIGO), a program of the International Council of Design (Canada). She also works as an Adjunct Professor in Graphic Design at the University of the District of Columbia’s Art Department, and exhibits and lectures on cultural design both internationally and locally.
While she has won multiple international awards, Larios often works in the community, sharing her indigenous knowledge with students at local schools and Latino advocacy organizations such as CASA de Maryland. For CASA, she designed and led a Cultural Arts program at Langley Park’s International High School in Maryland. She particularly enjoys sharing her illustrated children’s books with Central American youth, who share her connection to the Maya.
The Maya Language project is one that she has been refining since its first iteration as part of her work on a masters’ degree at Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design at the University of the Arts London. It was selected for the prestigious student Sign Design Award in 2005, making Larios the first Latin American ever selected for the British prize awarded biannually by the Sign Design Society of London.
After she graduated and moved to the mountains of Copán, Honduras, Larios deepened her knowledge of the Maya by living with and learning from local residents, who maintain their Maya cultural values and traditions, passing them down from one generation to the next.
“In London it was an academic project. In Copán, it turned into a life project,” she says of her time there. She regenerated nearly 100 symbols from the ancient ones and launched a related project, “Animales Interiores,” woodcarvings based on the mythological animals of Mesoamerica that play a role in the Maya scripts and cosmo-vision.
“The artifacts of a culture are transient. Codices burn. Buildings decay. Language can be lost,” she says. “But a narrative, once told, lives forever.”
Maya Alphabet of Modern Times
Tuesday, May 23, 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.
American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center
Meet in the Kreeger Lobby
4400 Massachusetts Ave. NW
Washington, DC 20016
Sign up for the class and to learn more at https://knowledgecommonsdc.org/classes/maya-alphabet-modern-times/
—Lucia Jimenez
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