by RYAN MALLETT-OUTTRIM
It’s not everyday that a guerrilla movement hosts an alternative art festival, but that’s exactly what just happened in southern Mexican city of San Cristobal, in the state of Chiapas.
From July 23 to 30, over a thousand artists from 45 countries flocked to the city’s outskirts to participate in CompArte for Humanity, a festival of art, poetry and music organized by the left-wing militant group, the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN). The EZLN declared war against the Mexican government in the 1990s, and today administers a handful of indigenous communities in the highlands of Chiapas. The movement’s ideology, Zapatismo, has garnered support across Mexico and abroad with its blend of Marxism and indigenous forms of horizontal community organization.
In a statement explaining their motivations for holding an art festival, the EZLN indicated it views artists as playing crucial role in promoting social change.
“We think that indeed, in the most difficult moments, when disillusionment and impotence are at a peak, the arts are the only thing capable of celebrating humanity,” read a joint statement from EZLN spokespeople Subcomandante Insurgente Moises and Subcomandante Insurgente Galeano.
Describing art as “perhaps the last bastion of humanity in the worst situations,” they suggested the art festival was about more than promoting the EZLN.
“The arts are the hope of humanity, not a militant cell,” Moises and Galeano stated.
The EZLN’s Definition of Art
The art on display at CompArte wasn’t limited to easels and paintbrushes. Rather, the EZLN said, “For Zapatismo, an artist is anyone who considers their activity as art.”
The result was a festival boasting an eclectic mix of everything from paintings and sketches to music, documentaries, theater, poetry and philosophy workshops. Much of the art had distinctly political and social themes, promoting social movements from every corner of the world.
On the first day of the festival, Mexican wood carver David Arias Dijard told Upside Down World his art sought to promote real life heroes. Dijard’s exhibition featured a collection of handmade wooden “action figures.” However, instead of depicting superheroes like Batman or Superman, Dijard’s action figures were of revolutionaries like Mexico’s 20th Century rebel leader Emiliano Zapata, Argentine Marxist Ernesto “Che” Guevara, and EZLN icons Subcomandante Marcos and Comandanta Ramona.
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