SENTIMENTS OF THE NATION LEGISLATIVE MUSEUM

Master Elías Robles Andrade, Director of the Legislative Museum

Zeltzin Yetlanezi Rodríguez Rosales

Ricardo Said Rodríguez Gutiérrez

Diana Karen Gaytán Jiménez

Saúl Martínez Ortiz

FIHRM. CONTEMPORARY COLLECTIONS:

CONTESTED AND POWERFUL

20 years after the Acteal

massacre. Pedro Valtierra’s X’oyep women

Where and when these pictures will be shown?

Why these pictures?

How many pictures will be exhibited?

Who is Pedro Valtierra and why is his work important?

Why this topic?

Background of the exhibition project

After 23 years of existence the museum was not covering

the needs of contemporary society.

Renovation of the Legislative Museum: December 2016 to

January 2018.

February 28th, 2018 was reinaugurated.

Legislative Museum reopening February 28, 2018

The curatorship and museography Department of the Museum

presented new proposals of exhibitions and activities,

considering:

Our public enriches with their knowledge and questions

the content of these spaces.

It is important that all cultural manifestations take place.

Therefore, one of the intentions is to invite to the

reflexing about different topics.

Why this topic?

20 years after the Acteal massacre. Pedro Valtierra’s X’oyep women,

focuses on the paramilitary incursion of December 1997 in the town

of Acteal.

New paramilitary activity in Chiapas, 2017.

New generations heard about the topic but didn’t know the conflict

could be tracked back in 1997.

Why these pictures?

These photographs serve the purpose to tell a

story: the story of the Chiapas indigenous

inhabitants and their struggle to achieve their

autonomy.

Where and when these pictures will be shown? The exposition will be shown from November 28, 2018 to

January 2, 2019, on the Temporary Exhibition Hall of the

Legislative Museum.

The Museum and the Mexican photographer Pedro Valtierra

(National Journalism Award, 1983) selected the photographs

in a joint effort.

What will the visitors appreciate at the Women of X’oyep exhibition?

The visitors will appreciate two videos to enrich their experience:

The first one will show the historical context of the Acteal Massacre and the Women of X’oyep.

The second one will talk about Pedro’s Valtierra resumé as a photographer.

How many photographs will be exhibited?

Ten photographs.

Temporary Exhibition Hall

Model of Valtierra’s exhibition

Model of Valtierra’s exhibition

Chenalhó, Chiapas.

December 31,1997.

Consequences. ©CUARTOSCURO

Chenalhó, Chiapas, 1998 ©CUARTOSCURO.

Yalchiptic, January 2, 1998.

Women protesting.

©CUARTOSCURO

San Andrés Larráinzar,

Chiapas. ©CUARTOSCURO. January 21, 1995.

The reality: Militarization and

repression.

Chenalhó, Chiapas. January,1998. ©CUARTOSCURO

Ocosingo, Chiapas. January 7, 1994. ©CUARTOSCURO

Oxchuc, Chiapas. January, 1994.

©CUARTOSCURO

Chiapas, 1994. The reality:

Exercise military guerrilla.

©CUARTOSCURO

Chiapas, 1994. The reality:

Exercise military of

Zapatista guerrilla. ©CUARTOSCURO

San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas,

January 5, 1995. The army visiting

the streets. ©CUARTOSCURO

Who is Pedro Valtierra and why is his work important?

Pedro Antonio Valtierra Ruvalcaba, a Mexican photographer, born in Zacatecas on

June 29, 1955.

He took a picture that became a symbol of the indigenous resistance against the

government aggressions. It was named The Women of X’Oyep

It was shot on January 3, 1998, days after the Acteal Massacre, at X’Oyep, in a

refugee camp.

The picture went around the world, noting the misery around the Chiapas conflict

and the repression that they were facing.

A glimpse of the exhibition video

Why these pictures?

To preserve the historical memory : the value of the exhibition is that it shows that there are sources that can help to represent the historical events.

After 20 years, the community remembers it. The survivors remember it. WE REMEMBER IT.

The historical memory can’t be erased. It’s a human construction, a part of the collectivity…

Map of the paramilitary forces

There is NO conclusion.

On december 1st of 2017, it was reported that there are forced migrations in Chiapas; MANY villages, houses and sowings were burned up. (La Jornada, https://bit.ly/2OSLwzK )

This has been a sympton of the unresolved issues of the State, and has been a continous problem during the last year.(El Universal, March 3, 2017 https://bit.ly/2ndxGxJ )

The conflicts continue to grow in the area and remains as the proof of the Mexico’s impunity and its inefectiveness. (Chiapas, Paralelo. August 16, 2018 https://bit.ly/2wbYOj2 )

Paper Index

1. Background of the exhibition project “20 years after the Acteal

massacre. Pedro Valtierra’s X’oyep women” – A museological approach.

2. Acteal: A sample of the impunity.- A historical analysis.

3. Indigenous legal framework from 1994 to the present.

4. Paramilitary groups in Chiapas. The absence of the rule of law after

EZLN armed uprising- A study of the paramilitary phenomenon and its

impact.

Our final goal as a Museum is…

Bind together past and present, allowing the museum

dialogue with the political and social contemporary context,

looking to comply the educational and critical museum

vocation, and to increase its role as an institution that

protects and promotes the human rights.

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