Watching: MOJO’Q CHE B’IXAN RI IXKANULAB’ / ANTES DE QUE LOS VOLCANES CANTEN / BEFORE THE VOLCANOES SING

Overview

Clarissa Tossin’s Mojo’q che b’ixan ri ixkanulab’ / Antes de que los volcanes canten / Before the Volcanoes Sing undertakes a richly sensory journey across moments, languages, and music, roaming through architectural spaces that are variously imagined and real, cosmological, and colonized, centering on the capacity of Maya cultural belongings, and wind instruments in particular, to give voice to Indigenous systems of knowledge. Grappling with the history of Western architects using Indigenous motifs without significant reference to or engagement with their source, the film works to restore these absent sounds, utilizing 3D-printed replicas of Maya wind instruments held behind glass in pre-Columbian museum collections.