COMMUNITY PROJECTS AND ACTIONS
HERE YOU CAN SEE ALL THE PROJECTS BY CHASEN THAJNI
The ultimate goal of Chasen Thajni is to create and provoke spaces of enunciative autonomy, self-determination, and self-representation, starting with the restitution, recovery, formulation, safeguarding and enunciation of our original knowledge, for this, Chasen Thajni, is composed of a popular committee that carries out community assemblies, and decision-making, this committee, commissions and commissions various projects, according to a central axis of work, these projects are executed by joint working groups (composed of members of the community and external agents), the tasks entrusted are resolved through our 4 "community action programs" working with methodological, artistic and pedagogical tools, intertwined with original and transdisciplinary knowledge.
For the period 2020-2021 the objective of Chasen Thajni is to rescue our maternal voice from silence and make it present in spaces of enunciation and public reception, to generate spaces of enunciative autonomy, but also to show for the first time an image that accompanies our voice, thus showing the need for his presence. Therefore, all the works commissioned by Chasen Thajni, for this first period (2020-2021), revolve around a central axis that we call "Breaking in/silence: taking the voice and times of language".
"The Limit of One’s Own" is a project conceived by the artist Ulises Matamoros Ascención and curated by Michel Blancsubé. Through the cultural space Chasen Thajni, they select various artists to develop projects in the community of Santa Inés Ahuatempan, Puebla, Mexico. The projects focus on community-based production methods, where the results not only engage in dialogue with the local culture but also generate a direct and tangible impact on the community, being exhibited and shared within the Ngiba context itself.
El "límite de lo propio" surge para elaborar diálogos cara a cara entre diversos saberes, y encontrar, o provocar puntos de coincidencias y desacuerdos; rebasando la frontera de lo que se considera como propio para habitar territorios de lo ajeno, y encontrar en ellos preguntas o respuestas más allá de nuestros límites epistemológicos.
"El límite de lo propio es un proyecto de arte comunitario comisionado por Chasen Thajni, y dirigido por Ulises Matamoros Ascención y Michel Blancsubé en colaboración con la comunidad de Santa Inés Ahuatempan, Puebla. A través de prácticas artísticas entrelazadas con saberes originarios y transdisciplinarios, se comisionan diversos proyectos con artistas invitados que dialogan con la cultura ngiba, generando sus propias obras y contribuyendo a la conformación de un archivo comunitario".
"Uno de los pilares fundamentales de este proyecto es la creación de un repositorio multimedios en constante evolución, que no solo preserva, sino que también dinamiza las historias, saberes y experiencias de la comunidad ngiba, convirtiéndola en la principal gestora de su propia narrativa cultural".
This printed edition corresponds to the first volume of the collection "Testimonios: los tiempos de nuestra lengua." It is a series of publications that compile various testimonies from Ngiba people of the Barrios de San Antonio Tierra Colorada and San Antonio Tierra Negra, in the municipality of Santa Inés Ahuatempan (Puebla, Mexico). These testimonies aim to break the historical silence in which the Ngiba nation has remained, and still remains, and also seek to break the enunciative impossibility, creating symbolic spaces of autonomy, in this case, a printed book.
The collection "Testimonios: los tiempos de nuestra lengua" is grouped under the following categories:
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Loss.
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The silence of the land.
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The stones speak.
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The first volume, "Loss," and the collection in general, are the result of extensive research conducted by the artist Ulises Matamoros Ascención in collaboration with Ngiba speakers from Santa Inés Ahuatempan, through meetings and assemblies held at "Chasen Thajni: the house of everyone," a community space created by members of the Ngiba community.
In this first printed edition, it compiles various testimonies from Ngiba neighbors of the Barrios de San Antonio Tierra Colorada and San Antonio Tierra Negra, in the municipality of Santa Inés Ahuatempan (Puebla, Mexico). These testimonies refer to the various linguistic violences suffered by, and still affecting, the Ngiba population. These are fundamental testimonies, expressed from the Ngiba voice and from individual experiences, highlighting the conditions that made the loss of the mother tongue possible.
"Chasen Thajni: the house of everyone" was built at the initiative of the artist Ulises Matamoros Ascención, thanks to the sixth edition of the BBVA-MACG program. The research, community meetings, and discussion assemblies that have made these volumes possible were funded by the artistic research sponsorship program of the Fundación Jumex Arte Contemporáneo 2020, and by PECDA 2019. The design of the edition and the first printed run for this first volume is sponsored by Chasen Thajni.
PALM WORKSHOP CHASEN THAJNI
Chasen Thajni, has a palm workshop dedicated to preserve, teach and update craft knowledge within the community of Santa Inés Ahuatempan. The Chasen Thajni palm workshop also welcomes artists interested in learning, developing or exploring creative processes from collaborative work with members of the Ngiba community, who share the processes of palm picking, preparation and weaving.
founder: Ulises Matamoros Ascención
Consultants: Cristina Clímaco Arellano, Catalina Sillero Colmena, Alejandra Ascención Colmena y Miriam Ramírez.
Collaborators: Patricio Julián Álvarez Valentín, Gilberta Juan Mendoza, Francisco Pastor Celestino, Ángel Ventura, Fidel Cruz, Nicolas Rosas Cruz, Gonzalo Valencia Durango ,“Tianguis Artesanal Ndasí Kajné”, “Manos Mágicas Ahuatempan” y cooperativa de mujeres “Ar-the Ngiba”.
"Ediciones Chasen Thajni", is an independent publisher founded in 2023 by Ulises Matamoros Ascención.
Ediciones Chasen Thajni develops projects through methodological, artistic and pedagogical tools, intertwined with original and transdisciplinary knowledge, to achieve a face-to-face dialogue between Ngiba knowledge and diverse thoughts.
The publishing house "Ediciones Chasen Thajni" publishes various works by members of the Ngiba community; works with authors from distant communities, and collaborates with other publishers. It also carries out close cooperation and work together with various members of the community, to whom it offers accompaniment and advice to develop editorial projects.
LORENA MAL (FOSILIFERA PROJECT), ULISES MATAMOROS Y CHASEN THAJNI
MUSEUM OF PALM AND NGIBA CULTURE.
It is a project and a collection of the artist Ngiba Ulises Matamoros Ascención.
Santa Inés Ahuatempan (Puebla, Mexico)
Thanks to the efforts of Ulises Matamoros Ascención, On Saturday, January 21, 2023, we met various artisans and artisans of Ahuatempan to receive a donation, a property for the "first artisan Ngiba corridor". This property is located next to the road at the entrance of Ahuatempan. We thank Mr. Miguel Ascención Colmena y a Inmobiliaria Ascención.
14.-KRAFT MARKET
2022-EN PROCESO
"The tianguis artesanal Ndasí Kajne" takes its name from the Ngiba language, "Ndasí Kajne" means "square or palm market". This tianguis is a community and self-managed project that arises from the concern of various artisans, to form a meeting place to sell their products without the need to leave their own community and without intermediaries. Founded by visual artist Ulises Matamoros Ascención, and artisans Nicolas Rosas Cruz, and Gonzalo Valencia Durango, Ndasí Kajne manages to bring together more than 100 artisans and artisans from different communities. The tianguis takes place on the last Sunday of each month in the Plaza Filogonio Martínez, next to the parish of Santa Inés (the second largest church in the state of Puebla). In the "Tianguis Ndasí Kajne", you will find typical food such as chilacayota and jamoncillo, broken beans or muleteers and typical seasonal food; you can taste drinks such as atole xoco, mezcal, and endemic fruit liqueurs; you can also discover the traditional crafts and the new woven palm crafts; you will find marble products... ¡ Everything at an incredible price!
This printed edition corresponds to the first volume of the collection "The times of our language". This is the first publication of its kind that summarizes a concrete explanation of the linguistic structure of the ngiba of Santa Inés Ahuatempan. All volumes of this collection are made from, by and for the Ngiba community.
The first volume, and the collection in general, are the product of a three-year research that the artist Ulises Matamoros Ascención has done in collaboration with Ngiba speakers of Santa Inés Ahuatempan, through meetings and assemblies held in "Chasen Thajni: everyone’s home", a community space made up of members of the Ngiba community. To gather this knowledge would be impossible, if it did not arise from within the same community and from the restlessness for the rescue of the language.
"Chasen Thajni: everyone’s house" was built thanks to the sixth edition of the BBVA-MACG program. The research, meetings and community discussion assemblies that have made these volumes possible were subsidized by the sponsorship program for artistic research of the Jumex Contemporary Art Foundation 2020, and by PECDA 2019. The edition, and first print run for this first volume were subsidized by the sponsorship program for artistic research of Fundación Jumex Arte Contemporáneo 2022; the Program of Stimuli to the creation and artistic development of the state of puebla, and Chasen Thajni.
All the information contained here comes from various notebooks and audio and video recordings that the artist collected at community meetings held in "Chasen Thajni: the house of all". This information was reviewed, compared, discussed and corrected also in community sessions, and personal visits to neighbors of San Antonio Tierra Negra and Tierra Colorada.
As an auxiliary tool, the collection "The Times of Our Language" has an open access digital platform, where interested parties can consult various audio and video materials that complement the topics covered in each printed volume.
Thin Ki: mobile recording booth (model 2, project)
THE TIMES OF OUR LANGUAGE
It is a recording booth and a safeguard for the Ngiba language, which will later serve as a laboratory for artistic experimentation.
"Mobile cabin" is a trailer that will travel through the neighborhoods of Santa Inés Ahuatempan, in addition to various nearby towns, performing a recording of the voice of the elderly ngiba-speakers of the community. This "mobile caravan" has a recording booth that allows a sound impermeability with respect to the environment, also has equipment necessary for the post-production of audio, and also for its dispersion in FM radio signals. This mobile cable can take power, for its operation, from any "outlet", but has autonomy of energy through solar panels.
The "movement" of this recording booth is necessary because of the impossibility of access and the distance between the Ngiba communities, but above all, it is necessary because of the mobility capacity of the elderly of our ethnicity: so this "mobile cabin" will visit them from house to house.
TONAL
The times of our language
It is a digital and printed glossary that gathers words and expressions in Ngiba language along with their meaning, definition or some comment.
This glossary also contains an image with the sound frequency of each word, and a tetragram with its musical notation. The tetragram is a resource that Ulises Matamoros Ascención appropriates to identify the correct pronunciation of each word.
Note:
The Ngiba language is tonal in nature. A tonal language is a language in which the contour of the fundamental frequency with which each syllable is pronounced serves to create phonological contrasts and minimum pairs, that is, that the variations of tone in each word cause it to vary its meaning or grammatical structure.
Thin Ki: mobile recording booth
(model 1)
THE TIMES OF OUR LANGUAGE
Thin kí: mobile recording booth, is a recording trailer and ngiba tongue guard. This trailer runs through the neighborhoods of Santa Inés Ahuatempan making recordings of the voice of Ngiba speakers. In this way a sound file is formed in constant growth.
Testimonies
THE TIMES OF OUR LANGUAGE
Thin Ki: Mobile recording booth, is a recording trailer and ngiba tongue protector. This trailer travels through the neighborhoods of Santa Inés Ahuatempan making recordings of the voice of the Ngiba speakers. In this way a constantly growing sound file is formed.
Romper en/el silencio. Meetings and speaker
THE TIMES OF OUR LANGUAGE
Community meetings were held at CHASEN THAJNI, every Tuesday and Saturday of each week. These meetings were aimed at understanding a little the structure and logic of the Ngiba language in the hands of its speakers. With the help of bilingual teachers from the community, and speakers of Ngiba, various discussions were held: consultations were held and comparisons of words and pronunciations were made; problems were raised, such as the possibility of agreeing on a common script generated from the same community, until the conformation of neologisms for words that do not exist in ngiba. On Tuesdays, ngiba classes were held, and on Saturdays, language discussion meetings were held.
These community meetings try to rescue our maternal voice from silence and make it present in public spaces of enunciation and reception, to generate spaces of enunciative autonomy, but also to show for the first time an image that accompanies our voice, Thus showing the need for his presence. For this reason, all the works commissioned by Chasen Thajni, for this first period (2020-2021), revolve around a central axis that we call "Breaking in/the silence: taking the voice and the times of the language".
Romper en/el silencio.
Classes of the Ngiba Language
THE TIMES OF OUR LANGUAGE
Community meetings were held at CHASEN THAJNI, every Tuesday and Saturday of each week. These meetings were aimed at understanding a little the structure and logic of the Ngiba language from the hand of its speakers. With the help of bilingual teachers from the community, and speakers of Ngiba, various discussions were held: consultations were held and comparisons of words and pronunciations were made; problems were raised, such as the possibility of agreeing on a common script generated from the same community, until the conformation of neologisms for words that do not exist in ngiba. On Tuesdays, ngiba classes were held, and on Saturdays, language discussion meetings were held.
6.-LIBRETAS ENSAMBLADAS
2019-2021
The "assembled notebooks" are 4 volumes in the form of artist’s books. All the information contained here comes from various notebooks, notes and notes that the artist collected in the community meetings held in "Chasen Thajni: the house of all". These notebooks are the product of a deep research of three years that the artist Ulises Matamoros Ascención has carried out in collaboration with ngiba speakers of Santa Inés Ahuatempan, through meetings and assemblies held in "Chasen Thajni: the house of all", a community space made up of members of the ngiba community.
"Chasen Thajni: the house of all" was built thanks to the sixth edition of the BBVA-MACG program. The research, meetings and community discussion meetings that have made these volumes possible, were subsidized by the artistic research sponsorship program of Jumex Contemporary Art Foundation 2020, and by PECDA 2019.
5.-DIBUJOS
2019-2020
It is a series of drawings made by Ulises Matamoros Ascención and Lenka Holíková. Each drawing has its written representation in ngiba and Spanish. This written representation includes a tonal graph showing the rise and fall of the pitch in the pronunciation.
WEBSITE (COMING SOON)
4.-COMITÉ 6 DE JUNIO
2019-2020
Coordinated by Ángel Emiliano Ríos, and with the welcome assistance of Mr. Don Manuel Ochoa, Mrs. Lafida Canalizo, and Mr. Pedro Sillero, the first meeting was held to discuss issues concerning the recovery and maintenance of "The June 6th Court". Soon Angel Emiliano, through the sound apparatus, will call the community in general to join this task, and thus recover this space with so much history: a place so cared for by our grandparents and grandmothers, and so forgotten by us.
3.-EL RETORNO DE
LOS ÍDOLOS
2019-2020
Chasen Thajni: romper en/el silencio es una obra que funciona en dos dimensiones, la primera se desarrolla en la comunidad de Santa Inés Ahuatempan, en la mixteca baja del estado de Puebla. En esta comunidad, el artista construye -con ayuda de integrantes de su etnia Ngiba- un espacio comunitario denominado “CHASEN THAJNI”.
Con el tiempo, el proyecto ha evolucionado hasta convertirse en una comitiva popular extendida por diversas regiones de la zona ngiba, ampliando su campo de acción y consolidándose como una red viva de trabajo, apoyo y resistencia. De ser un espacio físico localizado, Chasen Thajni ha pasado a ser un espacio disperso, sostenido por la comunidad y materializado en múltiples sedes y emplazamientos efímeros o temporales.
La segunda parte de esta obra funciona a manera de intervención en sitio específico en el museo de Arte Carrillo Gil. El artista, mediante micrófonos ambientales, captura y transmite a tiempo real los sonidos que se “reúnen” entorno a CHASEN THAJNI; un simple altavoz en el museo dispersa el sonido; habla y calla en relación a la voz o el silencio de la comunidad, pero también en relación a la estabilidad e inestabilidad de la capacidad tecnológica y de conexión digital de la región Mixteca.
2.- ROMPER EN/EL SILENCIO
2019-2020
Chasen Thajni: romper en/el silencio es una obra que funciona en dos dimensiones, la primera se desarrolla en la comunidad de Santa Inés Ahuatempan, en la mixteca baja del estado de Puebla. En esta comunidad, el artista construye -con ayuda de integrantes de su etnia Ngiba- un espacio comunitario denominado “CHASEN THAJNI”.
Con el tiempo, el proyecto ha evolucionado hasta convertirse en una comitiva popular extendida por diversas regiones de la zona ngiba, ampliando su campo de acción y consolidándose como una red viva de trabajo, apoyo y resistencia. De ser un espacio físico localizado, Chasen Thajni ha pasado a ser un espacio disperso, sostenido por la comunidad y materializado en múltiples sedes y emplazamientos efímeros o temporales.
La segunda parte de esta obra funciona a manera de intervención en sitio específico en el museo de Arte Carrillo Gil. El artista, mediante micrófonos ambientales, captura y transmite a tiempo real los sonidos que se “reúnen” entorno a CHASEN THAJNI; un simple altavoz en el museo dispersa el sonido; habla y calla en relación a la voz o el silencio de la comunidad, pero también en relación a la estabilidad e inestabilidad de la capacidad tecnológica y de conexión digital de la región Mixteca.
Chasen Thajni es una entidad colectiva fundada en 2019 por el artista Ulises Matamoros Ascención, en colaboración con miembros de la comunidad indígena Ngiba. Nació como un espacio comunitario abierto, construido a partir de una intervención en la plaza central de Ahuatempan. Durante tres años, este espacio fue el epicentro de múltiples actividades: reuniones, charlas, asambleas, sesiones testimoniales ngibas, clases de lengua ngiba y otras dinámicas que fortalecieron la presencia cultural de la comunidad. La mayoría de estas actividades, realizadas en lengua ngiba, se transmitían en tiempo real a un viejo altavoz instalado en el Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil (CDMX) y, posteriormente, en el Museo de la Ciudad de Querétaro y otras sedes del país.
Con el tiempo, el proyecto ha evolucionado hasta convertirse en una comitiva popular extendida por diversas regiones de la zona ngiba, ampliando su campo de acción y consolidándose como una red viva de trabajo, apoyo y resistencia. De ser un espacio físico localizado, Chasen Thajni ha pasado a ser un espacio disperso, sostenido por la comunidad y materializado en múltiples sedes y emplazamientos efímeros o temporales.