“Elotes Antirretroviral / Antirretroviral Corn”

2024

Mixed media. Ceramic casing of hiv treatment, natural pigment, wood, silicone and steel

An elotiza a celebration that takes place in the cornfield on a harvest day. During the paty, corn is eaten roasted or boiled with its leaves. These events have great meaning for me as a farmer, queer artist and person living with HIV. An elotiza involves a wrinkle in time, where the profits of labor are counted while preserving the grains that will be planted the next season. The notion of future that accompanies the ingestion of corn is similar to the clinical conviction of extending life by taking antiretroviral treatment. In Tlaxcala, the city where I was born, live and work, the cultural importance of corn and native grains is unquantifiable, the name of the city alone means “corn tortilla place” in nahuatl language. Similar to the cultural importance of HIV in the queer community: Indivisible fights. How to establish a poetic relationship between these two fields? Who is allowed to produce new images of HIV? When does hope happen? These questions led me to turn pills into seeds, experiment with different ways of nullifying the clinical function of the treatment and turning it into a metaphor for myself.