Homage to History, Homage to Art

Tonight I knelt down on the cool, concrete floor of the Centro Intercultural de Quetzaltenango. This is a building that I have known in passing, those few times I wander outside of Zone 1 of the city I live in.  It’s a public place, maybe a community center of sorts, with a name that touts an idea that welcomes art, and creativity. But, at least until now, the reputation hasn’t lived up to its name. It has taken a long time, a long history of starting as a train station, passing to the hands of the military during a perilous civil war, and finally being returned to the people. I find myself enjoying the coolness of the floor along with the heat of the creativity flowing in the air. I am proud to call myself a friend of some incredible artists that put the sweat and tears into enlivening this place, making the Centro Intercultural really live up to its name.

On March 30, 1930 while the rest of the world waited for the word of the Germans and the results of the first  World War, Guatemalans were swimming in pride and celebration in honor of the opening of the Ferrocarril de los Altos. This was the first train station installed in the country, representing a literal and figurative opening of opportunity – trade, commerce, transportation, recreation. They had good reason to celebrate, although I doubt the campesinos struggling to make a living working on large Spanish plantations had the time to attend the festivities. Yet the glee was short lived – only three short years later the celebrations ended along with the train station. A revolution was stirring in the countryside with the landless peasants, which meant commerce was down, and the government determined the train station could much better serve the people as a military training station. This famed, old, dark and damp building remained in the hands of the military from those days through the revolution, the land reforms, the gory years of the 36-year civil war, and managed to eek past the Peace Accords in 1996. Eventually, the Municipality of Quetzaltenango, the second largest city in Guatemala and arguably the most progressive, made a decision to return the space to the people.  A community center, an inter-cultural center, a museum of indigenous traditional wear, a soccer field for the locals, and a somewhat abandoned warehouse in the back.  Abandoned, until March 30^th 2014.

84 years after the famed opening of this building, here I am, this gringa kneeling on a cold floor, eager to soak up the history of the grand space I am in, eager to fill the space with my own history. My friends Bonifaz and Lucas, two Quetzaltecos with endless imagination and expression in a number of other projects, organized the Homage to the Ferrocarril de los Altos.  I can only begin to imagine all that has passed in the privacy of these tall walls and broken windows in years past, all of the commands whispered, the trainings conducted, the atrocities planned. But I am fairly sure this is the first time these walls are experiencing such an explosion of innocent creativity. The Homage was a history of the building, presented through a myriad of artistic expression – from historical photographs and cello music, to shadow puppets and the traditional marimba, to interpretative dance and afrobeat. I should also mention a stellar tap performance from a fragile, elderly woman and some local university students broom dancing. I have lived in Quetzaltenango more than 1.5 years now and still struggle to find genuine representations of art and expression. The city is not lacking in artists, you find them everywhere. Perhaps what it is lacking is the cultural value of art and expression. I like the Spanish phrase they use here, sigamos la lucha, lets continue the struggle to take back these spaces, take back the culture, take back the art.

I don’t consider myself much of an art connoisseur, and often find myself almost intimidated by the eliteness of it all. I am not an artist, in the typical sense of the word. Sometimes, I find my art is my presence, my participation.  I, twenty something extranjera, kneeling on this cool floor and breathing in the energy of history, creativity, and inter-culturalism in a building that has represented so much of what is wrong with my culture, my country's history, my peoples involvement in a horrid history of this country. My art is being here, sharing and representing what is new about this space and helping take back the culture.  I give my apoyo to these activists, my friends and my fellow Quetzaltecos, transforming the history of this building, this city, this country, and making the name Centro Intercultural mean something again.