Community meetings.

The Times of our Language.

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2018-2021.

 

 

• Artistic research in situ.

 

 

Santa Inés Ahuatempan.

Puebla, Mexico.

 

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"Exploratory research of language", threw concrete elements, objects, and materials: this research is developed with the integral support of the Ngiba community of Santa Inés Ahuatempan; this community includes Ngiba speakers who call "carriers of the language", bilingual teachers and the general public, all interested in knowing, learning or rescuing the Ngiba language. The research aims to achieve a deeper approach to the logic and structure of the language.

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​Face-to-face community meetings were held in CHASEN THAJNI every Tuesday and Saturday of each week. These meetings were aimed at understanding the structure and logic of the Ngiba language. With the help of bilingual teachers from the community,  and Ngiba speakers there were several discussions: advice and comparisons of words and pronunciations were made; problems were raised such as the possibility of agreeing on a common script generated from the same community, until the formation of neologisms for words that do not exist in ngiba. On Tuesdays, ngiba classes were held, and on Saturdays, language discussion assemblies were held.

 

OBJECTIVES:

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•   Form a team of constant work to study the structure of the language.

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COMMUNITY WORK IN COVID TIMES 

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Due to the pandemic caused by Covid 19, activities involving face-to-face community meetings were postponed, and it was decided, not by digital formats, but rather by alternating dynamics, which kept the distance, also continued to maintain cohesion between the community; these formats of activities are as follows:

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1. Exchanges of words (in Ngiba language) and drawings; in paper formats.

2. Formation of a vocabulary that proposes the writing of various words in ngiba.

3. Illustrations are derived from exchanges of drawings and words. These illustrations are made in collaboration with the artist Lenka Holíková and were later exhibited in Chasen Thajni.

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We decided to face the challenge of social distance due to the Covid 19, from non-digital dynamics, for two reasons; the first: is an ideological position regarding the excessive dispersion of more material modes of social exchange, which makes tele- digital presence a "common site", the idea is to articulate an uncommon "other" mode of social and affective exchange, at the end this project tries to find disjointed particularities of common sites; tries to place the center in the suburb. The other reason is more practical and has to do, of course, with the limited accessibility of telecommunication technologies in the region, in addition to the disuse of those technologies by the "older" members of the Ngiba community, for which, that technology is exclusive. We hoped that despite the pandemic, the impulse that our language had in this project would not be lost.

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