#nomadic museum

Ashes and Snow

Nomadic Museum

When I heard that the Nomadic Museum was making a stop in Mexico City and that admission would be free, I was not very interested. Yes, it was designed by Simón Vélez and yes, it housed Gregory Colbert’s Ashes and Snow exhibition but it also seemed like a populist move by a leftist local government.

In the end, I did visit with my family and was blown away by the transformative power of architecture. I remember how the otherwise unremarkable public plaza had suddenly become a bamboo temple with very high ceilings. Upon entering, one was enveloped in a cool breeze and the sound of flowing water accompanied by Lisa Gerrard’s The Absence of Time. I am glad I did not miss such a powerful experience.

(English version at the bottom)

  “Si vienes a mi en este momento

tus minutos se convertirán en horas,

tu horas se convertirán en días,

y tus días se convertirán en toda una vida...”

Gregory Colbert.

  El largometraje de “Ashes and Snow” es una pieza integrada por conjuntos de elementos multidisciplinarios que se combinan entre si para tratar de explorar lo que el mismo Gregory Colbert (creador) define como las obras maestras vivas de la naturaleza. 

  Este proyecto ambicioso comenzó con la idea de una pieza literaria llamada “Una Novela en Cartas” en donde un viajero escribe a su amada una carta por cada día invertido en sus travesías. El libro, que fue finalmente publicado en el 2004, contiene 74 cartas e incluye hojas en blanco en representación de aquellas que en la vida real fueron extraviadas en los viajes por el mismo autor. 

  Colbert, durante su transitar en lugares como la India, Birmania, Sri Lanka, Egipto y Etiopía, entre otros, hilvanaba escritura con imagen fotográfica y fílmica en búsqueda de “redescubrir esa tierra común que una vez existió cuando las personas vivían en armonía con los animales”. 

  La respuesta no puede ser más que la suspensión por unos instantes de la respiración, al sumergirse en la profundidad de las imágenes, sobre todo en el etorno diseñado por el mismo creador llamado “El Museo Nómada”, un museo itinerante que se edifica en la ciudad donde arriva la exhibición y se desmantela al finalizar la misma. 

  Cada pasillo te lleva a encontrar impresiones fotográficas de gran formato suspendidas sobre un espejo de agua, y al final de cada uno de estos, la proyección de cortos al estilo “Haiku.” Al centro, 60 minutos de largometraje, que pareciera murmurarnos al oido el devenir de pensamientos que hablan del transitar, de la interrelación, del movimiento, de la escencia de la vida misma. 

  En voz del mismo Colbert oimos repetir:

“Pluma a fuego.

Fuego a sangre.

Sangre a hueso.

Hueso a tuétano.

Tuétano a cenizas.

Cenizas a nieve.”

  Links

http://www.ashesandsnow.org/

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0493393/

  “If you come to me at this moment

your minutes will become hours,

your hours will become days,

and your days will become a lifetime...” 

Gregory Colbert.

  The long feature film “Ashes and Snow” is a piece integrated by a set of multidisciplinary elements that are combined with each other, trying to explore what Gregory Colbert (creator) defines as nature’s living masterpieces.

  This ambitious project started with the idea of a literary piece called “Novel in Letters” where a traveler writes to his lover a letter for each day invested in his journeys. The book, which was finally published en 2004, has 74 letters and includes blank pages that represent those that in true life were lost during the author’s travels.

  Colbert, during his transit thru places like India, Burma, Sri Lanka, Egypt and Ethiopia, among others, basted writing with photographic and film images in search of “rediscovering the common ground that once existed when people lived in harmony with animals”.

  The response can only be the suspension of breathing, for a few moments, to plunge into the depth of the images, especially in the environment designed by the creator, called “The Nomadic Museum”, a itinerant museum that is built in the city where the exhibition arrives and is dismantled at the end of its period of time.

  Each corridor takes you to find big format photographic prints over a water surface, and at the end of each aisle, the projection of “Haiku” style short films. At the center, 60 minutes of  a long feature film, that seems to whisper at our ears a process of thoughts that speak of passages, of interrelationships, of movement, of the essence of life itself.   

  In the voice of Colbert himself we hear repeated:

“Feather to fire.

Fire to blood.

Blood to bone.

Bone to marrow.

Marrow to ashes.