What, and who, comes to mind when you hear or read the word “muralism”? You have a few seconds to reflect, to let features, fragments of artworks, and, of course, names drift into your thoughts—because names, above all, matter. They are an imprint and a legacy; tied intimately to our actions, they are the reason we are remembered.
Let's keep going. Just a moment. “Muralism.” Do certain colors rush into your head? Themes? Places, perhaps? An opportunity stretched out for one more sentence. Ready? What did you think of? Did you remember Rina Lazo, or perhaps Elena Huerta? Did the hues of María Izquierdo’s skies come to mind? Or maybe the tragic history behind Electa Arenal’s final work? Maybe, just maybe, you evoked the face of Aurora Reyes: those eyes with their faint expression of constant judgment, those lips that spoke words the wind has long since carried away. Words of defiance, heavy with truth.
Yes, it is possible that one of them was right there, waiting, in your memory.
It is... possible.
In an under-documented and even less preserved corner of Mexico City, Espacio, objetivo futuro (Space, Future Objective) is fraying through time. This mural by Aurora Reyes serves as the crucial anchoring point for Playing with the Goddesses—a collection designed to turn memories into matter. On the runway, it presents not just the names and works of women whom the passage of years cast aside and forgot, much like Espacio, objetivo futuro, but also their contexts: pigments and textures, methods and manners, adapted into a language that is ours, and now theirs.
The quintessential little gestures of an artist—wiping her hands on denim overalls, the accidental drops of paint that adorn her clothes like crystals, and even the complexity of her strokes and shapes upon paper and cement—this is what we are speaking of through jackets, coats, hats, boots, and shirts. We endow the garments with mystique. Cardenal, Amapola, or Marfil are not just random clusters of letters; they are stories that demanded to be told.
Amidst crystal constructions that mimic anatomy and pattern-making games that reveal the architectural structures where life was surrendered to art, we pay homage to the colors of projects crushed beneath the weight of ego. We contrast lifestyles captured by hands stained with paint and effort, and we exalt the faces that others once chose to forget.
Across 30 looks, we take you by the hand down the intangible corridors of a museum erected for lost legends, finally giving those mere "assistants" and "collaborators" the place in history they always deserved.
We remember the women who came before us. The painters, who were also poets, teachers, activists, guides, and, of course, goddesses—because what else can you call those who create and play with universes still in expansion?
