Finding Swoon in Oaxaca.

 The best surprise i could fathom. 

Small independent print workshops, Oaxaca

I sought out as many of them as i could whilst i was in Oaxaca, brilliant and exciting, small, co-operatively run print studios. Run by young and active artists around the city, these studios are inspiring, they have rigged up there own equipment using what they can and initiative, making a free and mobilising atmosphere. Music was blearing and all the guys i met were 

wicked, truly motivated (they were all guys) and bloody talented.

 It was by far the most inspiring experience I've had yet. 

Print making is still very much alive in Mexico.

Their work out on the street. 

Oaxaca.

Beautiful colours and peaceful courtyards walking the streets of Oaxaca City. 

Pablo Ortiz Monasterio

Incredible photographs of the Huicholes, an indigenous north mexican community.

'The celebration of the Hikuri Neyra is essentially a fertility ritual. It begins months before the festivity itself, when they make a pilgrimage to the desert of Wirikuta (where the sun was born) there, they collect the Hikuri or Peyote (Lephophora Williamsii) that, along with the maize and the deer conform a Sacred Trilogy. They return to the sierra with a load of the sacred plant, and right before the rain season, they celebrate the Hikuri Neyra. They sacrifice deer to offer its blood to Mother Earth, afterwards, the community gathers in the ceremonial centers to eat peyote and dance for three days and three nights, caressing Mother Earth with their feet, so that She will wake up happy and willing to receive the seed of the maize. The group choreographs draw serpents, which represent the water, because the rivers, seen from above, seem to be serpents and in addition, in those mountains, the serpents only go out when it rains, in this way, they summon the goddesses of water, so they watch over the maize harvest, the chief food source of the Huichol Nation.'