This city is said to have been built on a lake and rivers, now covered in the capital of Anahuac. I can only imagine a time when those rivers were brimming with life forms that sustained the land and balanced out the ecosystem. Now I am choking helplessly, thinking about those same rivers been used as drainage for the city. They no longer irrigate the land, preserve biodiversity or improve air quality. Mexico ranks as the twelfth highest emitter in the world of carbon dioxide.

Mexico city has twenty-two million people and one vehicle for every five residents, is taking some steps to reduce emissions, but more can be done.

In this body of work, inspired from my residency at the Foundation Sebastian, I hope to explore ideas of renewal within and outside the boundaries of culture, race and gender in relation to a colonized Mexico, using the Dragonfly and other symbols as a motif. The Dragonfly starts its life in water, before taken to air and land, flies in many directions and has many positive, traditional and mythical beliefs.

Learning about Afro-Mexicans, is of great interest me, a Jamaican immigrant living in America. I want to explore what it means to navigate the cultural and social landscape when you are the minority. I want this work to reflect not just the past, but to stir a conversations about the present. I want to create an ecological and political climate that will inspire everyone make a difference.

Using different materials and techniques in this process, is as complex as the many issues that challenge our daily encounter regardless of our race, culture and social status.

I use the cactus fiber and various other materials in my process and within this work, I find the need to deconstruct and construct in creating a way to navigate within the many subjects of interest. I hope you the viewer, will be able to form your own option on where I am in the process of these developing ideas. I want to spark an argument for a larger narrative, that will lead me to further research and create with the input of out of many one Mexicans in the near future.