Hazel Hill Mccarthy III & Alejandro García Contreras

As part of its screening program Monitor , Ayer Ayer presents Monitor, a screening of the film "Viacruxis" by Hazel Hill McCarthy III in collaboration with Alejandro García Contreras on Friday December, 1st and Saturday December, 2nd from 7 to 9:30pm. On both days, after the screening, there will be a talk with the artists.

The Way of the Cross -or Stations of the Cross- is the name given to the path Jesus took in Jerusalem towards his crucifixion. In Mexico, as in many Latin American societies, Good Friday is a day of penance and mourning for the death of Christ. This film by Hazel Hill McCarthy III addresses Alejandro García Contreras' research and documentation, carried out more than 15 years ago, on a very peculiar tradition that arose in the Carrillo Puerto ejido of Chiapas in southern Mexico. The representation of the Vía Crucis has become an irreverent, chaotic and carnivalesque celebration of the absurd.

Based on an unholy mixture of religious beliefs, local and popular culture, pagan traditions and personal mythologies coexist in which participants wear homemade, theatrical and transforming costumes that evoke with pure abstraction, the magical and spiritual, while maintaining an underlying tone of violence.

"Viacruxis" is told through the voices of participants and organizers of the festival, who dress and act as Jesus: "the King", "the Bishop", "the Centurions" and "the Jews". Characters that allude to an alternate pantheon of strange deities and demons, in opposition to the codified narratives of the eternal spiritual conflict represented by Catholicism.

— Alejandro García Contreras