TITLE: Coyopapalotl Itemic [coh-yoh-pah-pah-loh-khl eeh-teh-mik]

Partially funded by a Canada Council for the Arts Explore & Create Grant, Coyopapalotl Itemic [coh-yoh-pah-pah-loh-khl eeh-teh-mik] (my Nahuatl name, meaning the coyote butterfly’s dream) is an ambitious, multi-media exploration of displacement and belonging within Turtle Island’s colonial context.

Using a traditional Tarot deck as the visual framework, and Gloria E. Anzaldúa’s concept of Nepantla (a Nahuatl term) as the conceptual framework, this body of work beckons resilience in the spaces in-between displacement and belonging. Anzaldúa, a Chicana Queer Feminist Scholar, defined Nepantla as the state of “in-between-ness” experienced by people of mixed heritage. As a Mixed/ Mestiza Artist, this is a feeling I have endured my entire life.

By using my Nahuatl name Coyopapalotl Itemic, the project asserts my existence and commitment to Indigenous Futurity. Inspired by a traditional Tarot deck this work aims to capacitate explorations of self. Created in collaboration with models of diverse experiences, embodiments, and expressions, each Tarot archetype is imbued with the profundity of our shared resilience.

Coyopapalotl Itemic is a labour of love. I strive to be a part of a shift in consciousness and culture that affirms my being and that of others’; a shift that holds space for those of us who feel marginalized and/or unsure of where we belong while disrupting colonial constructs of worthiness, asserting: we belong! Developed through tintype photography, and collage in Photoshop, this project applies traditional and contemporary approaches to creation and meaning-making to offer invitations to reflection, healing, and integration.

AUTHOR: Alexandra Black (Canada)

Alexa Black is an artist of mixed Nahua, Maya and Irish heritage creating as a guest on traditional, ancestral and unceded territory of the Coast Salish peoples, including the Xwməθkwəyə̓ m (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Səílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.

Through self-taught explorations in photography, drawing, painting and mixed media arts, Alexa found her passion deeply embedded in antiquated techniques of photography and classical illustration. Enamoured with tintype and wet plate collodion processes, she learned the foundations through a 3-day workshop with Quinn Jacobsen.

Black seeks to reveal the magic of hidden realms that exist in parallel to our terrestrial and colonially defined reality. Her art is ignited by the energies of her indigenous ancestral territories, animism, and being an ally to marginalized populations. The work is built by reconnecting the seams of her fractured identities, by reclaiming and amplifying the voices of her silenced ancestors from matrilineal blood lines. Black divines dreams and visions shrouded in haunting atmospheric aesthetics that are symbolic of life's beauty and cosmic initiations. Her work is primarily dedicated to deconstructing the disconnected and damaged societal tissue imposed by colonial standards of living.

Alexa has been a featured artist in galleries across BC and internationally in Los Angeles. Her drawings, films, and paintings have been featured in published works such as Invisible City and Discorder Magazine. Recently she was awarded the Concept to Realization Grant by the Canada Council of the Arts and Native Earth’s 40 seeds for 40 Seasons award to produce her upcoming 78 piece innovative and intersectional tintype/mixed media collage oracle, inspired by a traditional tarot deck. This evolving body of work is to be featured in SEITIES analogue print publication and shown in Toronto at Weesageechak 35 this fall.