Tzolk’in/ Count of Days
2020, video, color
Tzolk'in/Count of Days transforms Mexico City's renowned National Museum of Anthropology (built in 1964) into a defamiliarized architectural site inhabited by the ghost-like figures of tourists and workers who move through it. In moments these figures share the frame with spectral artifacts from the territory's pre-Colombian past, while in other instances, the artifacts burst rapidly onto the screen as ethereal objects in exaggerated color and aliveness. Tzolk’in/ Count of Days features the minor Mayan artifacts of the museum's holdings offsetting the spatial design of the building and grounds, which intentionally centralized Mexico's prominent Aztec civilization. Most of the Mayan artifacts depicted were recovered in the early 1900s at the Sacred Cenote of Chichén Itzá, a prominent modern day tourist site in Yucatán province.
Filmed by R Yun Matea on site at Museo Nacional de Antropología, CDMX