Edgar Calel’s work ‘Ru k’ox k’ob’el jun ojer etemab’el (The Echo of an Ancient Form of Knowledge)’ (2021) presents stones as sacred sites of ritual adorned with fruit and vegetables placed during a private ritual during the exhibition installation.
Exhibited here for the first time since Tate began its 13-year custodianship of the work, the piece exists not as a sculpture or installation, but as an offering to the land and Calel’s ancestors. In the artist’s home, stories from dreams are shared amongst families over breakfast and are understood to foretell the energy for the day or task ahead.
For Calel, dreams, art and spirituality are always interconnected and here, they have determined the specific produce which is on offer as thanks. Calel draws on ancestral knowledge from his Mayan Kaqchikel heritage, his work both a celebration of the traditions and spirituality of his community in Guatemala and an act of resistance in its presentation of ancestral
practices and indigenous technologies on an international scale.
The work creates a space to acknowledge, honour, preserve and be in the presence of ancestral indigenous forms of knowledge.