Name/Title
Whistling and Language TransfigurationEntry/Object ID
2021.02Description
Vinyl record with a blue cover titled "Xa Rchu Galr Tyepy Ouen Idizhsa"Artwork Details
Medium
vinyl LP record, cyanotype printContext
In the colonial period, the whistled version of the Zapotec languages became a tool of resistance to Spanish authority. Existing as an exclusively oral language until recently, Zapotec is today an endangered language under the social and political stratification of indigenous groups in Mexico. Since 2010, this group of Indigenous dialects spoken in Oaxaca, in southwestern Mexico, have been a stimulating field of research for artist Gala Porras-Kim. Whistling and Language Transfiguration is a vinyl recording which translates Zapotec spoken words into their accompanying whistles, while Notes after G.M. Cowan (2021.01) is a series of three drawings depicting these whistling postures. Porras-Kim's works are both aesthetic and utilitarian––capable of serving as a means for an outsider to access information about an unfamiliar culture––and exist as alternative resources to transmit and archive the Zapotec languages in the present day.Acquisition
Accession
2021.01-02Source or Donor
Commonwealth and CouncilAcquisition Method
PurchaseCredit Line
Courtesy of the artistLexicon
LOC Thesaurus for Graphic Materials
Record covers, Whistling, Language, Indigenous peoples