“I want to say in Spain that I'm mestiza; to talk about Malintzin, about Moctezuma...”

▲ It doesn't matter if you shoot with a Polaroid, a digital camera, or whatever you prefer. A personal perspective is what gives depth to an image , the artist explains in a conversation with La Jornada. Photo by Marco Peláez

Eirinet Gómez

La Jornada Newspaper, Tuesday, July 15, 2025, p. 2

Photographer Graciela Iturbide is preparing to receive the 2025 Princess of Asturias Award for the Arts in October, a distinction that recognizes her innovative vision and extraordinary artistic depth that has defined more than five decades of work.

Possessing a unique sensitivity for portraying the identity, spirituality, and daily life of Mexico, Iturbide is preparing to travel to Spain— to take protocol classes , she jokes—and proudly represent her mixed-race heritage before royalty and the European public.

“I want to tell you that I'm a mestiza. That my grandparents, great-grandparents, great-great-grandparents… come from (Agustín) de Iturbide, a key figure in Mexican history for his participation in the Independence and the creation of the Chamber of Deputies. I never say it, but in Spain I will, so you can see what he accomplished with Independence,” the photographer says in an interview with La Jornada in her studio in Coyoacán.

Although he has been warned that his remarks should be brief, and perhaps limited to acknowledgments, he plans to reflect on his mixed heritage and identity in the conversations that follow the awards ceremony and during media interviews in the Iberian country.

"I want to talk about Malintzin, about the Tlaxcalans; Cortés, Moctezuma will come up... I have a book by Hernán Cortés, by José Luis Martínez, that I'm going to reread."

The award winner is thrilled with the distinction, but also concerned about the protocol requirements and the selection of photographs she wants to bring to the ceremony.

I'm waiting for a gentleman from Oviedo to give me the necessary instructions on how to address the King and Queen in the opening greeting of my speech. Just the beginning, then I'll follow , he says, smiling.

Regarding the images he plans to show, he adds: "I have a lot of them from Spain, but what do you think? All gypsies. Who knows what the king and queen will think? But that's what I do: I photograph the villages ."

The 83-year-old photographer has just returned from Madrid, where at the end of May she presented When the Light Speaks, an exhibition organized by the Casa de México Foundation as part of the International Festival of Photography and Visual Arts. She had previously been in Brazil, where, in addition to opening an exhibition, she took time to take new images.

“I just went to Lanzarote, in the Canary Islands, and I was fascinated by the volcanoes. I did a whole series on lava and cacti. That's when I realized we've evolved. What did Adam and Eve do? No, it was Homo sapiens ,” she says enthusiastically.

Her subjects include landscapes, birds, objects, and, occasionally, people. I haven't stopped photographing people, as long as there's a relationship between them and me, so as not to be aggressive. I never shoot with a telephoto lens or a tripod; only with my hands and my camera .

Among his future plans is a book of heliogravures of Seri songs that he has recorded and written. This project has been discussed at length with Hank Hine, executive director of the Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida, United States.

Outstanding series

Iturbide (May 16, 1942, Mexico City) has built an emblematic body of black and white work over half a century. Her camera has focused on indigenous communities, such as the women of Juchitán, Oaxaca, and the Seri people of the Sonoran Desert. From this, two of her most iconic images emerge: Our Lady of the Iguanas and Angel Woman.

Also notable are the series "Frida Kahlo's bathroom in the Blue House"; "In the Name of the Father, " which documents the slaughter of goats in the Mixteca region; "Naturata," which records the work leading up to the opening of the Oaxaca Botanical Garden; and "Los angelitos," which captures rituals related to the burial of deceased children.

Then as now, she says, if there's a compass that leads her to press the shutter of her camera, it's something that surprises her: "What moves my eye and my heart. It can be an object, a plant, a human being, or something abstract ."

A self-declared agnostic and mystic, she believes that music, opera, and her readings have shaped her outlook. Among her favorite authors are Saint John of the Cross, Teresa of Ávila, and José Luis Martínez. She also devotes time to anthropology pieces. Manuel Álvarez Bravo, who was my mentor and helped me become myself, taught me that I should read a lot, see paintings, and listen to opera . She especially likes the arias of Maria Callas.

Among her photographic influences, she cites Manuel Álvarez Bravo, Josef Koudelka, Robert Frank, Diane Arbus, and Francesca Woodman. Every photographer leaves something in your life and helps you when you're taking photos. While it's not good to copy, it does help to have influences, but to develop them within you, so that when it's time to take the photo, they reach your eye and your heart .

Regarding painting, he highlighted his preference for Miguel Covarrubias, José Guadalupe Posadas and Francisco Toledo.

In an age of ephemeral images and visual saturation, Iturbide champions the value of authorial photography as a lasting testament. It doesn't matter if you take it with a Polaroid, a digital camera, whatever you want. Well, I think it depends on the author, right? A personal perspective is what gives depth to an image .

He recalls with admiration the archives of photographers such as Hugo Brehme, Tina Modotti, Edward Weston, Nacho López, and Héctor García, whose work continues to reveal new layers of meaning. He emphasizes that the Pachuca Photography Center houses many of these wonderful images from bygone eras , demonstrating how they can withstand the passage of time and speak to the present.

Photography is a document that serves as a part of your family album, your passport, or to capture images of villages and other places in Europe. Each photographer moves according to his or her own ideas, according to his or her own surprise.

The Princess of Asturias Award, he says, is an incentive to keep creating. If I last a long, long time, I want to keep taking photographs. It's my therapy .

After receiving this recognition, Iturbide plans to continue walking with his camera on his shoulder: I want to explore the earth, the rocks, the volcanoes and whatever I find along the way, even if it's just a little plant .

▲ Performers from Ceprodac, affiliated with the National Institute of Fine Arts and Literature, during a rehearsal. Photo by Francisco Segura / Ministry of Culture

Fabiola Palapa Quijas

La Jornada Newspaper, Tuesday, July 15, 2025, p. 3

Choreographer Francisco Córdova dedicates his latest creation, Se nos quedan ellos, to those who are no longer physically with us, but who remain in our memories. Through body language, the creator addresses unexpected losses, unspoken goodbyes, and forgotten loves.

Performed by the Contemporary Dance Production Center (Ceprodac), directed by Cecilia Lugo, the work premieres today at the Palacio de Bellas Artes as part of the Diverse Dances, Diverse Bodies season.

In an interview, Córdova commented that the piece emerged after suffering a tragedy: two years ago, Maximiliano, one of my best friends and a dancer in my company, Physical Momentum, was murdered. It was a tragedy that led me to create a piece, not to expose violence on stage, but to talk about death .

For the creation on memory and grief, Ceprodac, the National Institute of Fine Arts and Literature, and the company Physical Momentum collaborated in a creative and research laboratory.

Given the difficult situation we're experiencing as a society, Francisco Córdova found it very important to define loss from a different perspective and bring it into his body. It's about speaking of absence, emptiness, and that presence that hurts us and changes our lives and then becomes forgotten, not because we want it to, but because it's taken from us , he indicated.

The piece seeks to confront the audience with painful and universal themes, such as loss and absence.

In this project, the interpreters investigated the emotions produced not only by the death of a friend or family member, but also by the environment in which we live as a society.

The choreographer, who has developed works on diverse themes, acknowledges that with Se nos quedan ellos he had to poeticize something tragic to make it memorable and at the same time make reference to resistance.

I've always tried to seek out beautiful things or find that poetic element in the environment; I haven't strayed from the line I've followed for almost 20 years, but this piece has a more carnal impulse that represents not only me, but the entire community.

According to the stage designer, this proposal focused heavily on the symbolism and archetypes of absence and death, where music played a key role in avoiding the cliché of melancholy, but rather in understanding how loss is experienced or named.

The music has several atmospheres that lead to nine scenes. We listened, observed, and analyzed the scene extensively, including what the moving bodies were saying, so that the sound creation would be a companion and not overpower the body , Córdova explained.

Referring to the collaboration with Ceprodac, the director of Physical Momentum noted that each dancer has a particular language and a very unique movement profile; I was interested, beyond the body, in not structuring a conventional way of doing dance, but rather first being a team, because an external choreographer came on board .

They Were Left Behind, the opening performance of the Diverse Dances, Diverse Bodies season, premieres today at 8 p.m. in the main hall of the Palacio de Bellas Artes (Juárez Avenue and Lázaro Cárdenas Central Axis).

The show will then be presented from August 8th to 10th in the Miguel Covarrubias Hall of the University Cultural Center.